


Time Breaks All Promises

by Quercusrobur



Series: Heart's Desire [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, BDSM, Character Death, Dark, Dark Doctor (Doctor Who), Despair, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, It Gets Worse, Love, M/M, Power Dynamics, Rape/Non-con Elements, Really dark, Snuff, Starts out so nice but, Temporary Character Death - Jack Harkness, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Timey-Wimey, but they're hurting each other, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2020-10-28 21:54:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20785640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quercusrobur/pseuds/Quercusrobur
Summary: An alternate ending toFire the Crucible, which is a rather dark look at why the Doctor left Jack behind and what might happen when he runs into him in a weak moment. It ended hopefully; this story does not. It begins in media res, branching off from Chapter 33 of Crucible, and although I have written other sequels none of them are relevant so I've put this in a separate series. This is what happens if Jack does not refuse the Doctor's request to try again.It is emphatically not canon-compliant. There is a lot of explicit sex; some of it is violent. This story is dark and gets darker, the slow descent into an inescapable, abusive, codependent relationship, and although (because) they love each other deeply, it will end in tears, so please... read the tags. And then, step into my parlour, and watch it all go wrong.If we have only the one universe — if the universe is all there is — then time murders possibility. It erases the lives we might have had. -James Gleick





	1. Long game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This chapter starts from the section break in [Chapter 33](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15110342/chapters/37109061) of [Fire the Crucible](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15110342)._
> 
> _CW: explicit sex, very loving. Enjoy it while it lasts._

The Doctor clinging to him is not a new thing, although in the past there was more letting go when it made sense to do so. It’s just that there’s so much more time to live through, now, on a very short tether to a hyperactive, moody alien. Whom he happens to love but sometimes it wears a bit thin.

“There’s a book about that in the library, hold on - no, come with…”

“We’re going to want a hyperwave capacitor, little doodad about yea long, kind of spiky, of course you know what it is. Storeroom two, could you - no! No, don’t, I’ll come with you… “

“I just need to do some maintenance on the fluid links, erm -” After a baffled look at their joined hands here, he pulls up his trouser leg and offers his ankle hopefully to Jack, who groans and covers his face with his free hand. Even with them both sleeping more often than usual, there are still eight or more hours of waking time in between to survive; it's only taken a day and a half to drive Jack to distraction. His life had been constrained before but not like this. They need progress, and soon.

Not having bothered with shoes since it's not like the Doctor can go out in this condition, Jack opts to stand on the Doctor’s ankle instead as he disappears under the console. Not that the Time Lord is actually having any better time of it, but Jack is feeling put upon and needs to take out his annoyance on _something_, and no active pursuits are available to him currently.

“Are you angry with me?” His lover's plaintive voice drifts up to him from below the console.

Jack sighs. “No, I just…” He folds his legs beneath him and sits, lays his hand on the Doctor’s ankle. “Kind of; frustrated. At the situation.”

“Yes. I'm sorry.” He seems to have stopped working. “Knowing what's waiting for me, I just… can't. Can't let go. But I don't… Jack, if you think it's best…” He's entirely lost faith in himself, Jack realises, and his heart breaks anew for this despairing man whose recent choices have turned out so poorly for all involved.

“You're going to have to let me, then, Doctor,” he says, gently. “We can't go on like this, even in the short term. It will get better, either with practice or with time, but even if it's time I still need to be able to let go for a few minutes. I'd like to use the bathroom alone, at least. Or take a hot shower occasionally.” It seems that Jack himself is just about the perfect therapeutic temperature for the Time Lord, which makes shared showers often unpleasantly tepid.

“And getting dressed is just ridiculous, I know.” He sounds resigned, and less afraid than Jack expected; it seems he's been thinking along similar lines, underneath the distractions that have been driving Jack mad. “Well.” He takes a few slow breaths, then pushes himself out toward Jack. “Best try it here; maybe the TARDIS can… help, somehow.”

Jack reaches over to take his outstretched hand, and lets go his ankle. He hadn't meant to push the Doctor to immediate measures, but neither is he going to protest. “We'll catch you,” he promises, and hears the TARDIS hum comfortingly.

The Doctor smiles sickly. “The catching is the worst part; that's the problem.” Jack opens his mouth, spotting the flaw here easily, but the Doctor shakes his head. “Do it anyway. Please. Please don't… leave.”

Something to do with the complex mess of trauma and withdrawal the Doctor is dealing with, then; Jack nods. “I won't leave you.”

“I know.” The look in the Doctor's eyes is so open and trusting that Jack finds he can't respond; he gathers his lover into his arms instead, holding tight. “Jack -” It comes out sounding choked. “Jack,” the Doctor tries again, swallowing thickly, “this is the exact opposite of letting go.”

“It's not that I ever _want_ to,” Jack mumbles into his hair, pushed into unaccustomed honesty. “Don't imagine I've ever _wanted_ you to go, in all my life. I would keep you, safe here, forever if I could, if it wouldn't destroy you. You don't know…” He takes an odd hiccuping breath, then another. He shouldn't, he shouldn't, but he can't stop, he's ripped open straight to the depths of his soul. “If you could never leave me. How much longer would you live.”

“Oh, Jack…” His lover twists in his lap, right hand cupping the back of his bowed head; he pulls his left from Jack's grip to wind around his back and hold him close. Kissing Jack's head, he makes no further comment, and they sit there together, Jack mostly occupied in being grateful that the Doctor hasn't rejected him outright; not that he would have a lot of standing to do so.

Then the Time Lord sits up, and Jack raises his head to see his eyes feverishly bright, expression intent. “Shall we find out?” he offers, sliding his hand around to Jack's cheek.

“Doctor?”

“One more fixed point, Jack. One more time, and my future is yours.” That deadly earnest face, and Jack feels the bottom dropping out of his world.

He is in freefall, terror and an awful hope eating him from the inside, tempted, so tempted in this moment. _Unfair_, something in him cries, unfair to have laid his heart bare and been handed back this dreaded test in return; because he has known from the beginning that he is the wrong man for the job. Every time he has had a choice he has failed to stop the Doctor, and Jack is so tired of wondering if this is the time that counts for all. If life were a story, of course, this time it would be. What would he trade for his heart's desire?

Time is nearly standing still; he can hear each heartbeat loud in his ears and all he sees are the Doctor's eyes, intent and desperately hungry. If he could, if only he could, make _sure_ the Doctor will keep living and not throw himself into reckless, stupid causes, not burn through his life uncaringly as his previous self did - there could be no surer way than this. But it is no sure way at all.

“You can’t promise that,” Jack says wretchedly, knowing it for truth. “You can do a great many things, Doctor, but this isn’t one of them.”

“I can _try_,” the Doctor whispers, a consuming fire lit behind his eyes. “And never stop trying. Let’s find out what kind of life we can have together, Jack.”

What would he trade for an honest try? This is worth far more than the first blithe promise, and his next words feel like barbed hooks tearing his throat out as they come. “I don't think I _can_, I don't know if I can do that again. I don't know if _you_ can do that again. It might burn out your mind.”

“No galaxies this time,” the Doctor assures him. “Just finesse. We can _try_, Jack.”

It is utter madness, but it is a blazing, brilliant madness, a damn the odds, face to the wind sort of madness. Jack's first Doctor was full of it, and Jack ran laughing after him. In these years together, what have they become but people who _try_, who keep trying, keep doing, keep going on? The Doctor doesn’t say anything more, just waits, eyes unblinking, thumb stroking Jack’s cheek slowly. Maybe it’s that which tips the balance despite Jack's exhaustion with the whole effort, the clear acknowledgment that this is his choice, that he is now, finally, an equal partner; or maybe it is simply that he knows this death is not meant for the Doctor. Throat working convulsively, Jack takes a deep breath, gathers his lover back into his arms, and chooses life and love. “We can try,” he agrees.

The Doctor suffers himself to be held for a minute, then sits back again, hand still resting against Jack's neck. He looks torn between chagrin and eager excitement. “Now?”

Startled, Jack laughs. “You still have to be able to let go of me.”

The Doctor's face falls. “Oh. Of course.” A long pause, wherein he gradually leans closer to Jack, eyes averted. “... Now?”

“No. Not if you don't want to.” When the Doctor shakes his head, still without looking at him, Jack shifts to his knees, more than willing to distract and be distracted. Sliding his hand up the Doctor's back, Jack cups the back of his head, tilts his face up, and kisses him, wholehearted and hungry. The Doctor opens his mouth eagerly, moaning as Jack pushes him back slowly to the floor. His left hand creeps under Jack's jumper to pull at him. The ease with which he surrenders now should be more worrying, probably, as a sign of the damage he has done himself, but Jack can’t fix it right now and he is only human. Centuries of fantasies are hard to forget. Settling himself between the Doctor's legs, he shifts forward, folding the Doctor's knees up, trapping him. His hand is still safely on Jack's back, tucked into the waist of his trousers, so Jack may do as he likes without concern.

Face flushed, mouth open, the Doctor stares up at him. “What have you done to me?”

Jack laughs. “Nothing yet. Requests?”

“_Jack_. I feel like, this is, it's more…” He shakes his head. “Kiss me?”

“Always,” Jack says, and does. More responsive than Jack is used to, the Doctor moans loudly and his feet scrabble at Jack’s hips to find some leverage. “Mm-mm.” He stops. “Relax,” Jack says against his lips. “Take what I give you. Can you?”

Eyes dark and wild, the Doctor swallows. Something here, the relief of tension, the promise of later, or maybe just his incomplete recovery, has driven him to an intensity of feeling far beyond his usual, and Jack wants to explore it. One side of his mouth curves up, and on a breathless laugh he says, “I can try.”

“That’s what we do here,” Jack agrees, and lowers his head to lick the long line of his lover’s throat.

He can't lie still, it seems, but his movements are aimless now, his head tilted back. “You burn,” he sighs, “so bright, Jack… Captain, Captain, burning bright, in the forests of the night…” Happy to play the tiger, Jack smiles and bites carefully at the Doctor's throat as he opens the Doctor's shirt with one hand. He sets his hand spread wide on the cool skin of the Doctor's belly, feels him press upwards, trembling.

“I love the way you shiver when I touch you,” Jack says quietly, thumb stroking ticklish skin. He rocks his hips, pushing gently against the Doctor’s thighs. “I love the way your collar sits so neatly around your throat.” Beginning at the notch of his collarbone, he licks the Doctor’s neck again, up to his chin, nips along the line of his jaw. “I love when you moan like that, like you need me, like you could never get enough of me.”

“I do,” the Doctor gasps, “I never could.”

Momentarily speechless, Jack groans quietly and rests his cheek against the Doctor’s. He unbuttons his own shirt and lets it hang open, trailing teasingly over the Doctor’s skin with every movement. “I love -” Cool fingertips brush across his chest now, pinch a nipple, slide down toward his aching cock, and Jack pauses to catch his breath. “I love the way your hair falls across your face, I love when you open your eyes -” He does, and Jack forgets what he is doing, why he is drawing this out. “Desperate,” he chokes out, having lost track of what he was saying.

Sounding painfully so, the Doctor hisses, “Yes, I _am_. Do something about it, Jack.” He is trying to push himself up against Jack; failing that, he tries to pull Jack down to him. When that doesn’t work either, he fumbles Jack’s trousers open, shoves them roughly down, and wraps his hand tight and demanding around Jack’s cock. Physics can’t help him this time; Jack cries out and his hips press forward and the Doctor gasps as he is finally rewarded for his efforts.

“Don’t stop.” Jack kneels up and the Doctor frowns at him briefly until Jack opens his trousers too, working them up to his knees which are now well trapped folded above his chest. “You look amazing, perfect…” _vulnerable;_ it’s not a common descriptor for him and the thought sets something protective, possessive, burning in Jack’s chest. The Doctor’s reply is lost to a moan as Jack rubs his thumb over the head of his cock. He fishes in his pocket for lube, holds it up. “Alright?”

“If you _hurry_,” the Doctor says with a glare, and Jack laughs.

“I love when you’re pushy,” he says, slicking his cock and fingers, “and I’m going to love teaching you to beg.” The Doctor presses back against his fingers with a little gasping cry, a groan as he pulls back out, and after a moment, when Jack sets his cock against him but doesn’t move, the Doctor raises his head and glares at him again. “So, go on.”

“_You_ go on!”

Jack grins. “Tell me what you want. Beg me.”

“_Jack_. I’m not going to beg! You want it just as much as I do, go on!”

“Really? I can be very patient when I have a good reason, you know I can.” Nevermind the sight of him is maddening, skin flushed, clothing half off, desperate by his own admission; desperate for Jack. He isn’t truly fighting, either, just arguing by habit; it shouldn’t take much. Jack runs his finger lightly down the Doctor’s cock and his head thumps back to the floor. “It’s just words.”

“It’s some kind of long game, I know you -” He trails off as Jack nudges forward teasingly. Of course it is, but the endgame is hearing deliciously filthy things from the Doctor’s lips, nothing more.

Jack pulls the Doctor’s legs up against his shoulders, sets a single fingertip against the head of his cock. It slides back and forth, just a few millimetres, with the movement of their breathing; his belly tenses as he tries to find some leverage but Jack doesn't allow him any. “I just want to hear you. Say: I want you to touch me, Jack. Please touch me.”

Swallowing hard, the Doctor takes a breath. “I want you to touch me, Jack, please -” Not as patient as he had claimed, Jack’s hand slips down eagerly over his lover’s cock and the Doctor loses his words in a garbled exclamation, fingers clutching at the floor.

“Say,” Jack says, panting, feeling like he is burning up, left hand clamped on the Doctor’s thigh to hold him in place, right hand stroking steadily, “I want you to fuck me.”

Staring straight into his eyes, the Doctor says, very seriously, “If you don’t do it _right this moment_ you will regret it, I swear to you,” he is trying to push himself against Jack, but he _hasn’t said it yet_ and Jack will be damned if he gives up now. “Just fuck me, gods, you insufferable ape, _please,_ Jack, I want you to fuck me-eeee -” Jack only doesn’t laugh at the evidence his brain hung for a moment there because his own brain does too, sparks between his ears as he thrusts forward, _finally_. He is tight and eager, so eager, but Jack eases in, working his cock a little deeper each time. The Doctor, once started, hasn't stopped talking, a flood of bitten off words, _please_ and _oh_ and _Jack_, his head turning restlessly. When Jack’s hips meet his arse he pauses to enjoy the sight, the feel, of his lover writhing against him. The Doctor flails a hand at him and Jack catches it, entwining their fingers. Now lacking a hand on his cock, the Doctor moans piteously. “_Please_ don’t stop.”

“You have a perfectly good hand,” Jack points out breathlessly as he starts moving again. “It’s a really high-quality hand, I can tell you from personal experience -”

“Like yours better,” the Doctor sighs, but the difference can’t be too bad; his eyes unfocus and he relaxes, moving in time with Jack. That rare feeling of oneness stretches; Jack closes his eyes for a moment, trying to etch it deep in memory, the start of a new life here, together. The Doctor is making beautiful noises beneath him, so close already, and Jack feels the tension winding tighter in the pit of his stomach, coiling up his spine, sizzling in his nerves. He leans a little harder against his lover’s legs, speeds up, and suddenly the Doctor's eyes fly open and he is shouting, bucking under Jack, caught by surprise by his orgasm. Jack follows him, thrusting wildly for a moment before everything shatters; he bends the Doctor nearly double as he strains forward, crying out, catches himself on his hands. Feeling like he's been turned inside out, wrung out, he hangs his head and gasps for air before dizzily pushing himself back upright.

“That was _wild_,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Are you alright?”

“Good,” the Doctor says vaguely, staring at the ceiling. “Well done, yes.” A little scrambled, but probably alright; Jack smiles, feeling fairly _well done_ himself. The begging is going to need some work, but he will be happy to demonstrate as needed. Careful not to lose contact, Jack pulls out, lets the Doctor’s legs down, runs steadying hands over thighs and flanks still trembling with aftershocks. He licks the Doctor’s belly clean to an accompaniment of soft moans and restores their trousers to a semblance of normality.

“Still alright?” Jack wants nothing more than to curl up with his lover in bed, but they are nowhere near one. Poor planning; although he couldn’t have anticipated how shattered the Doctor would be.

“Still alright,” he echoes, sounding a little better. Lying down on the floor, Jack pulls the Doctor into his arms. It won’t be the first time sleeping in the console room for either of them; the TARDIS is the best comfort, sometimes. The Doctor snuffles as he burrows into Jack’s shoulder.

“Sleep, anwylyd.” Jack holds him tight, and hums along as best he can with the TARDIS’s song.

-+-+-+-


	2. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: explicit sex, power play and begging._

“Let go,” the Doctor says stubbornly, gripping the edge of the console white-knuckled. “Get _on_ with it, Jack.”

Eyeing him doubtfully, Jack takes a half step back, hand still firmly on his wrist. “You aren't looking so good -”

Jack has turned into the most ridiculous mother hen in the last few days. Turning to glare at him, the Doctor repeats, “_Let go_.” As if he had released a spring clasp Jack's hand jerks open, and that awful emptiness opens around the Doctor, yawning like a great maw ready to swallow him down. He holds tight, tighter, to the TARDIS, but she was never meant for stability, meant instead to dance freely in those winds, meant for motion and it's too much, there’s no safety, there’s no solid ground -

And then solidity hits him like a sudden cliff face, a planet sized kick in the gut, and everything goes to bright confetti for a moment. He gasps and it clears, his fingers still locked on the console his knees ache from the floor ears ringing face wet wreathed in fire -

“- you hear me? Doctor, please, oh gods I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please -”

Blinking painstakingly, he pries his fingers one by one from their hold and collapses sideways into that steady, welcoming flame. After a few minutes of rest, whilst Jack holds him very tightly, the Doctor swallows and raises his head from Jack's shoulder. “Why, why did you - I wasn't ready.”

“I know,” Jack says, guilt and remorse clear in his voice. “I'm sorry. You were - you were making this terrible noise, like you were - I panicked. I'm sorry.”

Laying his head back down, the Doctor sighs. “Done for the day, I think.”

“Yes,” Jack says, relieved, and lifts him like a child, and carries him to bed.

-+-+-

Self-reflection has never been a preferred activity for the Doctor. Not, in general, a good habit for a time traveler; too much potential for disaster. Once a moment has passed, it must stay in the past, however convoluted the universe around one’s timeline. That’s been the trouble with the last years, he thinks, too much self-reflection, too much fixing, one ought simply to move on, keep moving on, keep going.

Of course that’s the trouble now, because someone has scheduled an abrupt end to his moving on, all too soon, and he has to work out how to unschedule it.

Looking back, he can see now that Jack has always had this faith in him; he has never behaved as if the Doctor were rushing headfirst to his death. He has been worried, of course, desperately so at times by risks the Doctor has taken, but never by that looming fixed point the Doctor can never forget. And now - _how could he ask that, how could he beg another suicide, how will he bear being alone_ -

He doesn’t think about what he has asked Jack to do, just keeps pushing himself forward.

-+-+-

It takes a week of painful practice to even convince Jack to discuss it again, to come anywhere close to satisfying him that the Doctor will be able to endure the potential hours alone. “All the same,” Jack says, lying back on a sofa in the library, the Doctor tucked up against his side, “wait for me if you can. I'll try not to be gone long and I know the fire fills some of that need.”

“Much better chance of success with you, as well,” the Doctor says reassuringly. “I'll wait.”

“Only if you can,” Jack orders sternly, tightening arms around him. “Only as long as it's safe. We can try again, but only if you're _alive_.”

“Jack,” the Doctor says, patience beginning to fray at the constant worry, “my goal here is, explicitly and precisely, _not dying_. You are being ridiculous.” But something he isn’t thinking about has begun to crystallise around Jack’s words, _we can try again_ echoing in his bones until he has to turn away, ignore it, keep moving on.

“I know that! I know that.” Jack takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “I do. It’s just… Knowing that you do the most dangerous part when I’m dead. I’ve never felt so helpless, and that’s not even right, because it’s… it happens between one instant and the next, for me. Like being afraid of blinking.” He shifts around so he is lying on his back, carefully interposing himself between the Doctor and the sofa.

Laughing into Jack’s chest as he is bumped about, the Doctor says, “You are a terrible bed.”

“Wouldn’t know it from how much time you spend sleeping on me,” Jack says, pleased. “Like a great big cat. I don’t mean to fuss at you. Well, I do, but… not so much. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Only let’s get _on_ with it, Jack, can’t we?” With perhaps a little more wriggling than strictly necessary, the Doctor resituates himself so he can reach to kiss his lover. All the practice letting go hasn’t dampened his increased response to Jack; instead he has become the Doctor’s refuge and comfort, the surcease of sorrows in his hands, the promise of tomorrows in his eyes.

“What,” Jack says incredulously, breathlessly, when the Doctor finally lets him up for air, “right now?” The smell of him is a constant delight, made all the stronger for the rush of arousal heating his skin, darkening his eyes. His hands tug fitfully at the Doctor’s shirt and his lips are wet and red; they need to be redder.

Sliding his hands beneath Jack’s shirt, the Doctor allows, “Maybe not,” and bites down on his lower lip just hard enough that he makes a small, pained noise. His involuntary flinch has nowhere to go and the Doctor bites again, sucks hard, tongue playing over sensitive flesh as his fingers slide firmly up Jack’s chest. He is tense but not resisting and it hardly matters anyway; making each other beg has been the game of the week. The Doctor _wants_, and he will make Jack want as well, want so much he’ll beg for anything the Doctor offers. Capturing Jack’s top lip next the Doctor bites and sucks, fine stubble rasping at his tongue; when Jack tries to catch his lip in turn the Doctor pinches his nipples, hard, and he gasps instead. “Mm. Make more noises.”

Hands holding the Doctor's hips, Jack grinds up against him, chuckles as he groans. “Make me.”

“Ah. Yes.” Sitting up, the Doctor rocks back and forth, artlessly random in his movements and amused by Jack's occasional stifled noises, considering. It's not the easiest thing, getting Jack to beg when he doesn't want to - not the kind of begging the Doctor wants, anyway, the broken, incoherent kind, not the glib, descriptive kind he is so willing to let spill from his lips. He is easy enough to drive to incoherence in submission, but he doesn't _speak_ in that place, so that's no good either. Jack is watching him with an amused smirk, warm hands massaging his thighs to delightful effect; he makes a choked noise, eyes going wide, as the Doctor slips a hand around to squeeze between his legs. The Doctor smiles innocently. “Hm? Requests?”

“You,” Jack suggests, “naked, on your knees.” His unruly hands are doing clever things now as he opens the Doctor's trousers, pressing and stroking in ways entirely unrelated to the task at hand, and the Doctor moans as he leans forward into the fire of his fingers. “Oh,” Jack breathes appreciatively, his eyes on the Doctor's face, expression rapt. As Jack's hands delve into the Doctor's pants he moans again, eyes falling closed, fingers clutching at Jack's chest, not incidentally grinding down against his cock. “_Fuck_. Oh, fuck. Yes, like that…”

There is that. To push Jack to incoherence, all he has to do is lead the way.

With Jack's hands on him now he is free to move without losing contact; they are becoming very good at this dance. Shrugging out of his braces, the Doctor begins unbuttoning his shirt. “I am on my knees, Captain, you just have the good luck to be under me. As for the rest -”

Pushing him back slightly, Jack sits up, turns them so he can lean against the back of the sofa. He pulls the Doctor close again until his cock is nestled against the heat of Jack's belly. _Need_ has its claws into him now - it has never strayed far, since Jack agreed to try again - and the Doctor finds keeping still is not an option, though the motion of his hips seems to have replaced the motion of his hands and he is making no further progress on buttons. “Let me help you with that,” Jack murmurs, and the Doctor bends down to kiss him again, those swollen lips irresistible. In moments his shirt is gone and he sits up to pull Jack's off as well. The smile revealed after the shirt goes is one quickly becoming familiar to the Doctor. Too sincere to be called a smirk, too amused and calculating to pass for simple happiness: he’s going to _demonstrate_. “I’m really uncomfortable here,” Jack says, low and enticing, as his hand creeps between them to curl gently around the Doctor’s cock. The Doctor makes an encouraging noise, most of his attention on the glorious fire under Jack’s skin, surrounding him. “Trapped in my trousers while you tease me so beautifully. I’ll make it worth your while, please, Doctor?”

“Please, what?” It comes out too breathy - no, there is a spark of triumph in Jack’s eyes. Now all he has to do is walk the fine line between leading Jack along and losing himself along the way. Simple. Easy.

Eyes wide and guileless, Jack glances up at him as he leans forward to kiss his chest, skims a hand down his back to brush his backside with teasing touches. The heat in his gaze seems to set the Doctor's skin aflame where it rests. “Please touch me, I’m desperate for you to touch me. I want to feel your mouth on my cock so much it hurts, Doctor, I want to feel your tongue sliding against me -” The problem with the glib, descriptive begging, the Doctor thinks as he tries to remember why he’s left Jack’s dangerous, delicious mouth free at all, is that it is _descriptive_. Jack is pushing him backwards, off the sofa, and the Doctor realises he has been staring as if mesmerised.

Trousers quickly dispensed with, Jack smiles at him with all the assurance of someone who thinks they’ve already won, leans in to lick at his lips, slip his tongue into the Doctor’s mouth which really - makes it all much harder… Groaning hungrily, the Doctor opens his mouth, but as Jack takes his hand and tries to set it on his cock the Doctor gathers up his scattered wits and pushes him back to sprawl on the sofa. “You said,” he manages, as he drops to his knees.

Jack huffs a surprised laugh. “Yes, I did. Please do.” Pushing Jack’s legs wider, the Doctor lays open-mouthed kisses up the inside of his thigh, willing each touch to calm the emptiness in his mouth, admiring the way Jack's cock twitches as he gets closer. He licks a wandering course up Jack's other thigh, nuzzling into the soft warmth of his skin, the heady smell of him, all those enhanced pheromones other humans can't even appreciate properly. Gentle fingers brush hair from his forehead, trace lines of fire down his face, and his breath catches as he hears Jack whisper, “You're so beautiful.” He nearly gives in then, lets Jack win for today, just for the sheer pleasure of being so loved; but only nearly.

Jack sinks deeper into the sofa as the Doctor mouths his balls, groaning in need and frustration. “Doctor -” His tongue has been everywhere but where Jack wants it most, but the Doctor is in no hurry now, his own need being met well enough by the taste of him, the warmth of his skin, even if none of it presses in and fills him up and - he won't give up their shifting contest for dominance just yet. “Doctor, please.” Jack tries to tug at his head but the Doctor shakes him off.

“Beg for me, Jack,” he says, and touches his tongue, just the very tip, to the notch below the head of Jack's cock, looking up at him with eyes wide and guileless.

“Oh, _fuck_,” Jack says, somewhere between a desperate moan and a chagrined laugh. “Oh, Doctor, I need to be more careful what I teach you, _fuck_ that's hot.” Humming noncommittally, the Doctor strokes gently below Jack's balls and watches him give in. “Please,” he says, voice rougher than before, “please, Doctor, _please_, I need you, your mouth -” Finally, _this_ is what he wanted; the rawer pleas draw his desire up from where it lay in waiting like a hook in the pit of his stomach. Flattening his tongue, the Doctor licks slowly up the underside of Jack’s cock as he cries out, does it again as he writhes, once more as he sobs, “Gods of mercy, Doctor, _please_ -!” Satisfied, the Doctor runs his tongue around the head and sucks it into his mouth, moaning at the pleasure of it. Jack gasps, and groans, and falls silent, fingers clenching in the Doctor’s hair.

He trembles, held down, held open, by the Doctor’s arms on his thighs; he makes no attempt to take control, just breathes, rough and irregular. The Doctor can feel the blood flowing fast in its eternal circuit under his lips, under his palms, under his forehead where it rests against Jack's belly; there is nothing else like Jack, and Jack is _his_. Growling low in his throat, he lets his teeth touch delicate skin briefly, and then, when Jack just moans, less briefly. “Yours,” Jack answers breathlessly, “yes.”

Everything he is, but this in particular: this creature of shuddering desire, of vast time and the fires of creation, laid out here beneath the Doctor for consumption, for devotion. Every moan is music to him, every helpless movement feeds him, all his attention is focused on the fullness of fire in his mouth; he doesn't notice at first when Jack begins speaking again.

“- please,” he is moaning, pushing gently at the Doctor’s head, “please, Doctor.” Humming encouragingly as he sucks, the Doctor looks up at him, unwilling to pull away. “Want you, to fuck me.”

“Hmm,” he says, doubtfully. An empty mouth sounds terribly unpleasant. Jack, always attuned to his needs, smiles and runs a finger gently over his lips, offering a replacement. Pressing at the corner of the Doctor’s mouth, he slides his finger in beside his cock and they both moan. The Doctor allows Jack to push him slowly back, dizzy with want but enthralled by the look on his lover's face; mouth open, eyes dark and deep enough to bury all his sins, Jack holds his breath as he watches his cock reappear from the Doctor's lips. Adding a second finger when there’s room, he pushes the Doctor down to the floor, straddles his hips.

It's molten song inside him, a live wire from his cock to his tongue, the circuit completing through Jack and feeding back. Jack's head is tilted back, his eyes half lidded, as he slides his fingers in the Doctor's mouth, presses on his tongue, pulls out to wet his lips and pushes in deep to fill him again. As in a dream, the Doctor raises fingers to Jack's mouth, lets him wet them thoroughly, feels his way to the tight warmth of his arse as Jack moans encouragement. “Yes,” and “like that,” and “more, please,” and the Doctor closes his eyes, lost in sensation, lost in need, lost in Jack, _lost_.

He raises his head to follow Jack's fingers again but they don't stop this time, out of his reach and his hips are pressing against nothing - he opens his eyes, baffled, desperate, to see open triumph on Jack's face. He doesn't even have to say it; the Doctor is lost, has lost. “Jack -”

“Beg for me, Doctor,” he whispers, intent as if this were all the universe, as if nothing else mattered, as if the Doctor were every star that ever burned in the darkness. It is enough to soothe the fear, for now, and he opens his mouth, broken pleas falling out like tears from stone, so brittle.

“No, please, don’t, I need you,” he cries, clutching at Jack as he backs away; he whimpers as Jack’s mouth comes down over his cock, sudden smooth searing and _gone_. “Anything, Jack, what do you need me to say? _Please_, your fingers -”

So tender, as he destroys every defence; Jack traces his lips lightly, leans down to press a kiss against his needy mouth. “But I can’t hear you beg, then.” Slowly he lowers himself onto the Doctor’s cock, still watching every reaction hungrily; the Doctor sobs and closes his eyes as he sinks into that searing embrace, can’t still his hips and can’t forget the horrible hollow emptiness in his mouth.

He tries to string words together, to persuade. “I _need_ it today, need you in my mouth, it’s _empty_, Jack, please.” Instead of fingers then Jack is kissing him hard, tongue thrusting in the same rhythm he is riding him, the heat of him everywhere, glorious fire inside him, around him, the Doctor nearly so far gone as to _pull_ at it, but not quite, not quite. He convulses as he comes, fingers clawing at Jack’s back, sucking on his tongue, and Jack follows him down, yelling into his mouth, coating his belly in quickly-cooling warmth.

“Mmm,” Jack says, nuzzling into the Doctor’s neck. “I hope that was half as good for you as it was for me. Gods. I'm loving this thing where you can't get enough of me, Doctor.”

“At least half, I'm sure,” the Doctor mumbles, wishing it weren't. Maybe he wouldn't crave it so much if it weren't so blazingly wonderful.

“Well. Good.” He raises his head and smirks. “Better luck next time.” The Doctor smiles back, pulls him in for a kiss, but it won't be better next time. He can keep trying, but Jack will always win in the end; Jack has choices, where he has only needs.

-+-+-+-


	3. Fulfilling the dream

Jack has regrets. Very private, very silent regrets; he suspects sometimes, in that shadowy space between waking and sleeping, that they are not quite the right regrets. He regrets giving the Doctor so much leverage over him; but only sometimes, because it puts him where he wants to be. He regrets, on principle, having given in to the desperate pleading of an addict; but only a little, because it’s the Doctor, and he can’t imagine any world in which he would regret keeping the Doctor alive.

Jack doesn’t know why that thought makes his jaw clench and his heart race, and he doesn’t want to know. It’s self-evident.

What he regrets most is having agreed to something so inherently unsafe. Dazzled by the promise of after, perhaps, he had forgotten what he was agreeing to: letting the Doctor go out into the universe, once more burning with the consuming fire of the immortal spark Jack carries within him - maybe alone, and maybe without Jack there to carry him home. It will be out of his hands, and it’s terrifying. He makes rules to postpone the inevitable: the Doctor has to sleep, has to eat, no matter how awful he feels. Has to have a plan. Has to be able to stand six hours without touching Jack, which is not a popular edict.

“You have no justification for that at all,” the Doctor declares angrily, hands in motion but not quite touching Jack, who doesn’t move. “It’s completely arbitrary. It’s different when you’re dead. It’s different when I can see all of time! It’s _different_, Jack, and you’re not accomplishing anything but making me miserable and upset and angry and how does that _help?_”

“So it’s arbitrary. Be glad I didn’t say eight hours.” Arms crossed, Jack watches as the Doctor throws his hands up with a stifled noise of frustration, turns, and stomps away.

He is back in ten minutes, contrite and earnest, and Jack isn’t a _monster_, he can’t spend his life pushing his lover away, can’t see him in pain and not want to help. After a few more minutes Jack gives in, gathers him up tight and safe again, no longer sure why he is pushing them both so hard.

-+-+-

He has to make good on his promise eventually, of course; as much as the Doctor complains, he wants that fire too badly not to keep pushing to meet Jack's rules.

"Six hours, Jack," the Doctor says, burrowing full-body into him after very efficiently stripping them both. But even Captain Jack Harkness cannot find the situation particularly arousing. "That was six hours, I did everything you wanted, you can't back out now."

He could, of course. The whole enterprise is built on his willing sacrifice, and if he can't find the will… But the alternative seems worse, trapped here with a desperate, bitter Time Lord who would, no doubt, push himself past sanity to be able to get rid of the uncooperative temptation that is Jack. Or worse, give up and kill him again himself; doesn't bear thinking about, what Jack might find on waking from that. And despite the creeping fatigue that won't loose its hold on him, Jack doesn't want to be got rid of. Now, or ever.

"I won't back out," he reassures his lover, rubbing his back soothingly. "We're in this together, Doctor, us against Time, yeah?"

The Doctor nods, face pressed to his neck, sharp chin digging into his collarbone. "Time doesn't stand a chance."

"Right. So let's get you feeling - steady," he doesn't like any insinuation that he is not _healthy_ in some way, "and dressed, I suppose, and we'll be about it." And Jack will somehow manage to recreate that soul-deep willingness. It shouldn't be so hard, really. After all, history is full of tragic romances, lovers willing to give their lives to keep their beloveds. Jack just happens to have the opportunity to fulfill the dream.

It is hours more before the Doctor is willing to let go of him, which is plenty of time to convince himself; even if he does sleep for part of it. He tends to fall asleep any time he holds still for long, anymore. When he wakes the Doctor is settling into bed next to him, dressed and with Jack's clothes to hand as well. Jack cocks an eyebrow questioningly.

The Doctor looks a little embarrassed. "It's easier to let go when I know you won't be going anywhere."

Grinning, Jack reaches back, curls his fingers over the headboard and flexes in a stretch that has brought kingdoms to their knees - or at least the rulers of kingdoms. The Doctor swallows, gaze nowhere near Jack's face; the naked desire in his eyes is thrilling. "You should have mentioned. I'm sure something can be arranged."

Blushing hotly, the Doctor nevertheless shoves Jack's clothes off the bed and kneels between his legs, pushes his knees up as he leans forward. "You don't need clothes for this," he says, and bites down on Jack's nipple.

Jack laughs, and moans, and arches up into his lover, and doesn't let go of the headboard. "Certainly not for _this_."

After a sharp nip on his other nipple, just for good measure, the Doctor lowers himself to Jack's chest, rests his chin on crossed forearms. "If I could hold on to the fire… I wonder what it would be like, to have you like that."

"Fuck," Jack breathes, all his blood rushing to his cock, "_yes_."

"It needn't take long, I'm sure," the Doctor says cheerfully, thrusting slowly against him.

"Wouldn't," Jack agrees, trying to decide if he should keep his hands where they are or if it would be safe to move them. He couldn't have asked for a better result from that bit of provocation.

"Well then. Shall we be about it?" The Doctor hasn't stopped moving and it's hard to concentrate, but Jack is certain there's a catch here - oh. Of course. He has to kill himself first.

Haze abruptly clearing, Jack focuses on the Doctor's expectant face. "Bribing me."

The Doctor sighs. "Do you not want me to do that, as well?"

"Uh." Jack had been expecting something other than mild exasperation at that. Guilt, maybe. "No, I think in this case… that's alright. Long as we're all clear what's going on here. It's a good bribe," he admits.

Smiling smugly, the Doctor says, "I rather thought it would be." All his cheer is a facade, though; all his attempts at lightness cannot entirely hide the anxious anticipation underneath. Distraction is the better part of surviving, some days, but it's not enough today. Letting go the headboard, Jack wraps his arms tight around his lover and rolls them both to their sides. The Doctor sighs wearily, nuzzles against his chest. "No, I didn't think that would work for long."

"I mean, I still think it's a good idea," Jack says, rubbing his back soothingly. "Just the _being about it_ puts a damper on things. But I'm… I think I'm ready. Are you, really?"

"I can bear it, I think - and I _can't_ bear the waiting any longer. So, yes." He lifts his head and smiles somewhat sickly at Jack. "Please, Jack, let's - let's fix this, and then…"

"The rest of our lives," Jack finishes softly. The Doctor promised, and Jack intends to hold him to it. Threading fingers through the Doctor's hair, Jack tilts his face up until his lips meet Jack's, kisses him with all the tenderness he can command until finally he relaxes in Jack's arms, head heavy against the mattress, restless hands stilled on Jack's back. "It's going to be alright. We'll get through it, Doctor."

Those ancient eyes Jack could so happily drown in, that beguiling earnest look - Jack takes a breath to attempt to object to whatever it is, but all the Doctor says is, "I believe you."

Breathing out slowly, Jack lets that stand in the air for a moment, perfect and shining. Arms still tight around him, Jack answers softly, "I love you," and kisses him again, and feels the Doctor begin to tremble as he calls up the fire.

-+-+-

When Jack revives, nothing has changed.

The Doctor is still there, holding him tight, trembling against him. No storm, no fury; no gold in his eyes, no ethereal echoes trailing his movements. Baffled, Jack lays still for a moment, swallows to wet his throat. “Doctor? What… what _happened?_ This isn’t…” _what I was expecting, what usually happens_ -?

“I couldn’t,” the Doctor mumbles into Jack’s shoulder. “I couldn’t hold onto it, Jack, as if I were a, a broken mug or a cracked bowl, it just… seeped away. And then I tried to change it, but I hadn’t enough strength left. I don’t know…” He trails off miserably.

“Don’t give up,” Jack orders, shaking him. This attempt at hopeless resignation is unacceptable. “Don’t you give up. You hurt yourself badly last time, Doctor, maybe… maybe you just need a little more time to heal. How long was I dead?”

“Ten hours.” He sounds a little more like his usual self, at least.

“That’s good though - fourteen was the lowest before now, wasn’t it? And you said sixteen for the other one, but I didn’t believe _that_, then or now -” The Doctor had finally raised his head, but he looks away again guiltily. “Yeah, I thought so. But at least… now you know, I believe we can do this. I won’t back out, Doctor.” Even if maybe he should; but the Doctor is safe, and Jack will _keep_ him safe, and why else has he stayed all this time but to get to the _later_ promised him?

There’s no giving up now that it is visible on the horizon.

-+-+-+-


	4. Places reversed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: bondage, non-sexual._

“Doctor, I was thinking… I mean, you can tell me to go to hell if you like, of course.” Jack is uncharacteristically hesitant; the Doctor eyes him with annoyance as he slams about the TARDIS console. He is wet and disgusting with swamp mud and it is beyond irritating when Jack pretends he doesn't hold all the cards right now, insisting on this horrible _practice_. Practice being utterly _miserable_.

“Go to hell,” he grumbles viciously, and feels a bit better.

Jack's grin cracks the mud coating his face. “Fair enough. Maybe a shower first.”

“At least,” the Doctor says, uninterested in whatever new torment Jack has thought up. He doesn't feel any better after the shower, although he has found that turning it much too hot distracts him from the empty misery a bit. Jack is sitting on the bed waiting for him when he finishes, wearing only pants and an unbuttoned shirt; he can't be planning to draw this out much longer. “Can I -”

His hands clench into fists as Jack shakes his head. “It's only been four hours. And you had plenty of distraction for most of it. You can go a bit longer. You _can_, Doctor.” It's no good arguing with him; the Doctor stalks stiffly to his wardrobe, pulls on pants and trousers. “That's what I was thinking about,” Jack continues, to the Doctor's back. “You said it feels like falling into a great emptiness, and my cuffs… it's a really grounding feeling, for me anyway. So I was thinking maybe… would you like to try wearing them?”

_No_, he thinks, _absurd_, immediately rejects the idea - why would he voluntarily submit himself to being restrained? But he can't speak, because surely he will have to _touch_ Jack to get them off him, _have_ to -

Turning without any idea what he is going to say, he is struck by the expression on Jack's face. Far from hopeful, or in any way looking forward to the Doctor taking up his offer, he has that particular closed-off air that hides a vulnerability he doesn't care to show. Offering his cuffs, the cuffs that have been one of the few constants in his life through years of, of - _trauma_ is a nice word for it, maybe. He has never asked to take them off; he takes comfort in them when he is upset. The Doctor doesn't understand what it means to him to have offered, but it is no attempt at restraint. Entirely at odds with his initial reaction, the Doctor says gently, “You don't have to, Jack.”

Frowning stubbornly, Jack insists, “If it might help you, I will. Do you want to try?”

“Not particularly, but…” He comes to sit on the bed, not so close that Jack will move away. “You wouldn't have offered frivolously, and although I intend never to admit this again, you have a rather disturbingly good sense for taking care of me.” The expected smirk is half-hearted at best; Jack takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment.

“Alright.” To the Doctor's great disappointment, but not surprise, he tucks the cuff of his shirt under the cuff, covers his hand with the fabric of his other sleeve. “Open it. No cheating. The whole point is to see if it helps you.” The cuff splits obligingly as the Doctor draws his thumbnail across it, and he pulls it away without touching Jack, still warm with the heat of his body. He aches with more than the need to touch now; seeing the way Jack contracts into himself, the way he cradles his remaining cuff protectively against his chest, the Doctor aches to provide comfort as well.

“Jack,” he says, throat tight, “my Jack. I'll put it back, it's alright -”

Quickly Jack arranges his sleeves and offers his right wrist. “Take it. _Do it_.” Feeling like he is committing a terrible violation, the Doctor does; Jack fastens his shirt cuffs as tightly as he can and takes a deep breath, and another. He looks up at the Doctor and sighs. “Don't look at me like that, Doctor, all heart in your eyes… Surely putting them on me without consent was worse than taking them off with it.”

They might never end, listing worse things he's done; but still. “Was it?”

Jack looks away. “No,” he admits, unwillingly. “Which isn't me saying it was a good idea. Just that… just that.” He sighs again. “This is worse. For me.” He picks up a cuff, stares at it for a moment, holds it out to the Doctor stretched across his hand. “Do you want to do it yourself, or do you want me to hold it?”

It's impossible to say what outcome the Doctor is hoping for: it would seem a terrible waste for Jack's sacrifice to do no good, but if it does help, he might feel he had to do it again. “You hold it,” he says impulsively, laying his wrist out and sealing the edges Jack folds closed before he can think better of it. Heavy and stifling, it sits warm around his arm; Jack squeezes gently before letting go. It is too loose, but within seconds begins reshaping itself. “I feel unbalanced.”

Offering the second cuff, Jack chuckles. “Put the other one on, then.”

When the second cuff closes about the Doctor's wrist something changes; he couldn't say _what_, exactly. Quieter, but no sounds have been stilled. Slower, but his time sense is perfectly intact. Frowning, he glances quizzically up at Jack. “What are they meant to do?”

“There's no _meant to_ about it.” He watches the Doctor closely, rubbing his wrists together absently.

“What do they do to you?” Jack's brow furrows as a bemused little half smile twists his lips. “What?”

“It's just… you've never asked, this whole time. They don't _do_ much. I suppose they provide reassurance. Of what… has changed as we've gone along, really. Safety, for a certain value of safety. Your claim on me. My love for you.” One hand comes up as if to touch the Doctor's face, but doesn't make it even though he leans forward. “A promise,” Jack says quietly, shaking his head; the Doctor sits back, disappointed. “Everything I am.”

There is a glaring inequality in Jack's list that the Doctor can't help but notice. He wets his lips nervously; an honest and forthcoming Jack is an opportunity not to be wasted, but also a risk. “My love for you?”

“That…” Jack pauses to pick words, smiling wistfully. “That's always been a bit harder to pin down. Not something I could carry with me.”

“Not - _Jack_.” But he's not sure what he is protesting, really, only that he wants to chase away the shadows from his Captain’s eyes.

Jack waves a hand dismissively, setting aside the open mood. “It's alright. How do you feel?”

Reluctantly, the Doctor allows the topic change. “Still unbalanced. Erm. Top-heavy. I don't know. I don't think they're helping, really, I still… need you.”

“They're doing _something_,” Jack says, tilting his head, but the Doctor can't tell if he is disagreeing or just observing. “Distraction, if nothing else. Try something for me? Hold your arms out.” He demonstrates, palms up, hands fisted, and the Doctor imitates him. Seeing his own bare arms encased in the cuffs Jack has worn so naturally for so long is startling; his stomach drops, vision blurs, as a wild fear twists through him that they are somehow reliving time, places reversed. He nearly claws the things off him, in that moment. But then Jack's fingers close carefully about his wrists, holding them up, heat seeping through, and some soundless shock travels out to his edges, echoing back from the soles of his feet, the top of his head, shakes him out empty like a shirt. “_Oh_,” Jack breathes, “look at you.” Instead the Doctor looks up at Jack, the only mirror in sight, and pauses, arrested by the unguarded tenderness on his face. Ever so carefully, eyes searching intently for every reaction, Jack squeezes the cuffs, and everything - goes away.

Heartsbeat muffled in his ears, the Doctor draws a breath of air still carrying the warmth and scents of his shower, coiling in his nose with all the scents that Jack brings with him. Under his foot on the floor, deep in his mind, the third heart in his chest, the TARDIS hums contentedly, occupying herself as she wills whilst her passengers occupy each other. Held here with Jack reassuringly near, _present_ and still as he has been so infrequently in his life, everything seems simplified, that devouring emptiness set aside, outside, his own self firmly occupying his body and nothing more.

“Doctor,” Jack whispers, and the Doctor opens his eyes to his searching gaze. “Alright?”

“Please,” he manages, after a breath, “let go.” Jack releases him immediately, sets his hands reassuringly visible on the bed and backs away slightly, and the Doctor trembles and looks away as everything comes rushing back in, all the bright complexities of a universe he doesn’t want to do without. Jack is waiting patiently, blazing bright, when the Doctor looks back; his fingers fumble, unsure, as he takes the cuffs off. “I don’t want - that. I don’t want to feel all wrapped in cotton wool. Do you -”

“Yes,” Jack sighs, relieved, and holds his hands out for the Doctor to replace the cuffs. He takes a deep breath as the second one adjusts itself to his wrist, and smiles. “Thank you. I’m sorry it didn’t help more.”

Watching his own bare wrists carefully lest they should become weighted down again, the Doctor shakes his head. “It did… something, you’re right. Dulled the need. Jack, please -”

Jack crawls up the bed, opens his arms; the Doctor nearly sprains something throwing himself against his lover's chest. “Clearly so,” Jack says softly, holding him tight through the vertigo as all the universe whirls mad about his sun. “The cotton wool feeling…” He trails off, and the Doctor makes a somewhat sick noise that was meant to be encouraging. “It means that someday, if you really need a break… maybe I can give it to you.” It's clear this means something good to Jack; his mind is all concern and nebulous joy. But all the Doctor can hear is _need_, and why is it always needing, and why is it always him?

It occurs to him later, well rested and firmly anchored, that his need had not been the only one on display there, and that perhaps it isn’t Jack who is misapprehending the distribution of cards in this game.

-+-+-+-


	5. Ebb and flow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: explicit non-consensual sex, abuse of power._

“Shh, shh,” Jack says soothingly, stretched out in bed beside the Doctor, bare centimetres separating them. “I’m right here, it’s alright.”

The Doctor doesn’t move; he has learned that Jack simply moves away, if he does. “It is _not_ alright,” he says, voice shaking. “Please, Jack, isn’t this good enough? I need you, you know I need you, _I_ know I need you - you’ve proved your point.” Hyper-aware of Jack’s movements in this close proximity, both begging for contact and dreading the pain of it, the Doctor tenses when Jack moves his leg. When he feels no contact he relaxes; then Jack, foot still lifted, touches a toe to the sole of his foot and a high, shuddering noise tears its way from the Doctor’s throat. It turns into a gasp when Jack moves away. “Jack!” he whimpers. “It’s not alright!”

Maybe it’s not, but after the years of captivity, after all Jack has given, having the Doctor completely at his mercy like this is satisfying on a level Jack can’t quite admit to. “You’re safe,” he insists instead. “I’m right here, I won’t leave you.”

All he wants to do is keep the Doctor safe; but all his efforts break like shattered spray against the rock of the man who can’t be kept, even tethered to Jack as he is. The argument over him leaving the TARDIS has been wide-ranging and furious, raging in raised voices and silences by turns through another three attempts to shift the looming fixed point of the Doctor’s death. He scoffs at Jack's fussing; whatever happens, clearly he'll survive it. But Jack can't stop imagining them confined somewhere, unable to touch, the Doctor going slowly mad, every time they go out. After each attempt he has forced the Doctor to work back up to six hours apart; each time it has been more difficult. This is by far the most interesting way Jack has found to prolong the time without contact. The Doctor is too desperate for him to get up and leave, and he seems unwilling to resort to physically imprisoning Jack; instead he does as Jack requires of him, lies still and begs prettily and _submits_, for perhaps the first time in his life.

Kneeling up, Jack surveys the trembling wreck that is the last Time Lord. His fingers are clenched in the bedclothes like roots to hold him in place; his eyes are wide and intent, following Jack’s every move. He flushes as Jack’s gaze travels slowly downward, although how he should have any shyness left is beyond Jack.

“I know it's not an ideal situation, but you really are ridiculously pretty," Jack says, smiling down at his lover. He runs a finger down the curve of the Doctor's flank, accompanied by a breathtaking moan. The moan changes timbre and the Doctor squirms as Jack lifts his hand from skin again, moves it to the front of the Doctor’s trousers.

"Jack, no, I don't -"

"Lie still," Jack orders. Carefully Jack opens his trousers without touching, works them down his hips slightly, along with his pants, until the head of his cock is free. Breathing speeding up but otherwise completely still, the Doctor watches him silently. Leaning forward, Jack breathes a hot breath over the Doctor's cock. "Hands behind your head," he says, and sighs in wonder as the Doctor _does_. "Oh, Doctor. I will never get tired of that." He breathes again, watching it stir the dark hairs peeking out, watching the Doctor's cock twitch, trapped. "Beg me," he whispers.

The Doctor sobs and turns his head away; then he swallows tightly. "Please, Jack, I - I want you to touch me, ple_eease_ -" His voice leaps an octave on the last word as Jack touches his tongue to the tip of his cock, slick and painfully red. "Gods of mercy," he sobs, panting, body like a coiled spring as Jack licks and pulls away, licks - pulls away. "Please, I can't get enough of you, Jack, I really can't, even when - please touch me, I want your mouth on my cock, I want it so badly, _please_ -"

How could he refuse? At least _teaching the Doctor to beg_ has been going well. Chasing his breath, Jack lets his lips slide firm over the smooth skin of the Doctor's cock, laps at the musky sweetness of him. He allows no other contact, and wonders how it must feel, to be anchored in fire, anchored in time, by a mouth on one's cock. The Doctor hasn't stopped begging, head turning restlessly.

"I need to feel you, feel it burning like fire, burning me away, don't let go, Jack, please don't go -" But he does, of course. The Doctor cries out piteously, lost and broken.

"Lie still," Jack says again, and the Doctor does. Jack drags his trousers and pants off roughly, admires the view for a moment, then says, "Roll over. Knees up, spread wide. Wider," he adds, "don't be shy. It's just me, love. I won't drag it out much longer, I promise." The Doctor just moans, face pressed into the mattress, that lovely arse spread invitingly, waiting for Jack. The muscles in his back, in his thighs, stand out in sharp relief, whipcord strong; the smooth curve of his arse practically begs for Jack's hands. Instead Jack draws his fingertips down the Doctor's back either side of his spine and watches the muscles and tendons shift and stretch, pulled haphazardly tighter as his back tries both to arch away from the lines of fire and press upward into Jack's steadying touch. He _wails_, muffled by the bed, as Jack lifts his fingers one by one until just one remains, trailing down the crease of the Doctor's arse; and then that one goes too.

The Doctor gasps, and shakes, and his breath comes back out as a sob. Gasp, and sob. "Jack," he says, nearly unintelligibly, "please, don't, please, Jack, when -"

Stretching to reach the lube, Jack slicks his cock, watching the Doctor's arse clench and loosen in anticipation. He shifts around, aligning himself, waiting for a loose moment; then he says, “Now,” and pushes forward. The Doctor groans, low and pained, and he is so tight, much tighter than Jack was expecting considering how much sex they’ve been having - and he has _hurt the Doctor_. Jack tries to stop but the Doctor is pressing back against him mindlessly, desperate for contact, arse locked tight around his cock, and this isn’t what Jack _wanted_ -!

“I’m sorry,” Jack says quickly, “I’m sorry, Doctor, I don’t think -” He lays his hands on his lover’s hips gently to still him and some of the tension leaves him - the tension Jack has unmercifully built up. He is still pressing back, still so tight, and Jack is still slipping deeper, millimetre by millimetre. “Are you sure,” Jack moans.

The Doctor’s voice is tense as well. “Just don’t leave me.”

Bending forward to kiss his spine, Jack reaches down to wrap slippery fingers around the Doctor’s cock, swollen and very nearly warm to the touch, and begins to move. It will stop hurting soon, Jack knows from experience, but although the Doctor’s cries sound the same as always, if muffled by the bed, Jack can’t stop hearing pain in them. By the time the Doctor comes his arousal has fled irretrievably. Unfinished and unlikely to, Jack pulls out, hand still on the Doctor’s hip; rolls him onto his side, and lays down, and holds him close.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I hurt you. I should have - gone slower, used fingers first -"

The Doctor laughs incredulously; it's not a pretty sound. "_That's_ the part you're going to apologise for?" Then he sobers and looks down, struck by some realisation. "Ah."

"What?"

"Nothing," the Doctor lies, hiding his face against Jack's chest. "It's alright, Jack, it's alright now."

There is a sinking feeling in his chest and Jack is certain he missed something important. Something _else_ important. "You said _don't_," he ventures unhappily, remembering. "Don't… what?"

"It's alright now," the Doctor repeats, and doesn't answer.

-+-+-

Funny the things one can get used to. The Doctor can remember a time when things were more an ebb and flow between them, but Jack holds his life and sanity in the palm of his hand now; no use denying reality. They deserve each other, maybe. Certainly the Doctor deserves his current predicament, after all he has done. Both of them apologising for the wrong things; but the sins are very real.

Jack stares down at him looking conflicted, flickers of emotion washing over his face. The line between his eyebrows that usually goes with a frown is there although one side of his mouth is hitched up and he closes his eyes briefly. The Doctor doesn’t know what to ask, what to say, so he waits silently, wondering. When Jack opens his eyes, the conflict is gone; instead he is detached, just watching as he begins unbuttoning the Doctor’s shirt. The heat of his fingers through the fabric is a tantalising promise and the Doctor is panting in anticipation by the time Jack reaches his collar, desperate for contact, for the fiery trails across his skin that anchor him tight to reality, that promise more, and more, and sustain him through the waiting. The bowtie slithers around his neck as Jack pulls slowly.

“Five hours,” Jack murmurs. “It only takes five hours to have you begging for me.” He tugs the Doctor’s shirt from his trousers, carefully folds it away to the sides. It has been closer to six by now but the Doctor would have begged at five, happily. “I can’t imagine what you go through when I’m dead.”

“Please,” the Doctor says, feeling as though an iron band is compressing his chest. It is all pain, anymore, everything but Jack is pain; the fire, the waiting, the emptiness. “Please, Jack.”

“Please, what?” He smooths the fabric down over the Doctor’s chest, still not touching, and the Doctor’s breath shudders out of him.

“Please touch me. I need you to touch me, Jack, please, it hurts, I'm lost, please -” Tears are gathering in his eyes but he holds himself still so Jack won’t leave, begs so he will stay. “I need to feel you, Jack, I need you, please touch me.”

“Am I the monster now?” Jack whispers. His eyes are empty, windows onto a darkness the Doctor does not know how to light. “Like this?” He touches the Doctor’s nipples lightly and the Doctor feels his hearts stutter; the universe stops its dizzy whirl and the current arcing through him stops his throat, arches his back. Jack raises his hands and he gasps, moans sickly.

“Please -”

“Like this?” Instead of returning his hands Jack leans down to lick his navel. The jolt in the pit of his stomach makes him sob; he bites his lip, hard, and Jack chuckles as he sits back up.

“_Please_, Jack -”

“Like this?” His hand is around the Doctor’s throat now, pressing hard, but he doesn’t pull away and the relief is so great the Doctor relaxes into it without thought. Breath whistling as he pants shallowly, he closes his eyes and basks in the glorious fire surrounding him, finally anchored in the strong hands of his Captain. “Yes,” Jack says for him. “Like this. You are, so… so beautiful, Doctor, you are magnificent in surrender, but it's so…” He swallows audibly, and finishes in a whisper, “It's so wrong.” Moaning as Jack licks at his lips, the Doctor opens his mouth wider and then that fire is _inside_ him and nothing is more important than this; too much going on so he stops breathing, the better to concentrate, to experience, to remember.

Everything has gone pleasantly fuzzy, Jack's hand firm and solid, the heat of him warming the Doctor through, his lips moving on the Doctor's, his tongue making all the steady world blaze with colour and joy. When he pulls away the Doctor is disappointed, but only mildly; his hand loosens but stays where it is and everything is still well. Everything is still bright. “Breathe,” Jack whispers, and his voice is strange.

The Doctor breathes, and the haziness fades, and he opens his eyes.

Moving slowly, Jack slides his hand to cup the Doctor's face. He is still crouched low over the Doctor but his face is pale and his eyes are wide, white-ringed. “I might have killed you,” he says, voice tight.

“By far the most pleasant way I've been offered,” the Doctor assures him, not quite understanding.

“I might have _killed you_.”

He makes to pull away further and the Doctor understands. “Don't go! Don't, Jack, please, don't go.”

Face reflecting his horror, Jack folds forward to lay his head against the Doctor's shoulder. “You can move,” he says, muffled. “Please move. I'm sorry, Doctor, I'm sorry…” As the Doctor encircles him in his arms, holding tight, Jack shudders against him and his tears wet the Doctor's neck. He can't imagine anything will change, but it is good, so good, to hold him.

-+-+-+-


	6. Every lie he tells

Unable to trust himself at all anymore, terrified at how far he had gone in something the Doctor probably never considered a game, Jack gives up on _goals_ and _progress_ and devotes himself entirely to the Doctor's wellbeing; inasmuch as he can, when he has also lost the will to push himself through the towering exhaustion. He can't imagine he has been able to _hide_ it, now that the Doctor is back to a normal four hours of sleep a night. Jack needs more than twice that just to keep up with him, and it's only getting worse. But he hasn't said anything. It is a disturbing amount of time to spend unconscious when he is meant to be keeping the Doctor from doing stupid things, but the prospect of sleeping for a week has been sufficiently worse that Jack has simply gone on. He won't have a choice, soon. The fatigue is seeping into his bones.

“_Jack_. You aren't paying attention at _all_.” The Doctor is staring down at him accusingly, apparently tired of being ignored.

“No. I'm sorry.”

“It's been getting worse,” the Doctor observes, settling on the bed beside Jack. “Were you ever going to say something? You've barely been making it through the day for… weeks now, I think.”

Out of time to ignore it, apparently. “It's all the deaths catching up to me,” Jack explains unwillingly. He hates reminding the Doctor of that part, the real toll of their choices on himself, because he doesn't want to deal with the guilt and he doesn't want to change anything. Better to keep the Doctor focused on the future, better to leave all their mistakes behind as quickly as possible. “I don't want to abandon you, but I'm going to need to sleep soon, for a long time.”

Unexpectedly, his lover simply nods. “I know. A week, more or less. Maybe more this time; you've put it off too long.”

“You - oh.” Jack had forgotten. “You do know. That was pretty much the first this you saw of me, wasn't it. Hello Doctor, what are you doing here, fall unconscious for a week.” So very, very long ago.

Eyebrows flying up in surprise, the Doctor laughs. He has recovered a heartening amount of his customary _joie de vivre_ since Jack gave up forcing him to stay away. “Is _that_ how you remember it? I suppose you've got the basics… basically correct. Erm.” Sniggering to himself, he declines to elaborate. Jack watches him for a moment, enjoying the laughter even if it is somehow at his expense, then pokes him. “Ow! What? Well it wasn't half as congenial as you make it sound, you know. You've got a decent right hook even when you're too exhausted to stand. It turns out.”

“I remember yelling at you, but… I really punched you?” Jack has considered doing so on quite a few occasions, of course; just his luck he can't remember the one time he actually did.

“You really don't remember? I suppose it was a very long time ago, for you.” He shakes his head. “You really did, and told me to piss off, and then collapsed. So I didn't, because I'm nothing if not a meddler and you were a mess. And so, yes. But, no.” He sobers at that confusing proclamation. “Also… after the Reaper. You slept for six days, and I'm not sure it helped anything at all. It was a very long time until you came back to me.” So much for not reminding him; Jack’s memory of that time is largely a dim haze but it is clear that’s not so for the Doctor.

Jack shifts around until he is lying against his lover, arm over his lap. "There's nothing _wrong_ with me this time, just… tired. Maybe too tired to make good decisions, lately. I've been awful to you. I'm sorry."

"You haven't." The Doctor shakes his head, wry half smile twisting his lips. "Or maybe you have, but it's… it's alright, Jack. It is. We can't stop trying, you know, we'll have to get back to it, but maybe things will be easier after you sleep. You needn't worry I'll do something stupid."

"You won't leave the TARDIS?" His worst fear, these last weeks, after it became clear that the Doctor would not, or could not, hold onto the fire long enough to injure himself again. But still he might become trapped somewhere separated from Jack and suffer a torment the beginnings of which Jack has been forcing them both to endure on a daily basis; and Jack’s only leverage the threat of _not coming along_, which is patently absurd.

"I won't leave the TARDIS," the Doctor confirms, and while Jack doesn't exactly _believe_ it… he isn't lying, either, which is good enough.

Jack sighs. "Alright. Good. That's… good." His limbs feel too heavy to move. Eyelids sinking closed, he mumbles, "Is now okay?"

Laughing as he shoves Jack into a more normal orientation in the bed, the Doctor bends down to kiss him briefly. "Now is fine. Sleep all you need." Jack tries to reply but unconsciousness bears him away.

-+-+-

As he watches Jack's eyes close, his breathing settle to the slow cadence it will follow uninterrupted for a week - at least - the Doctor feels nothing so much as relief. A weary, enervating sort of relief, but relief nonetheless. Finally, a break from the pain; finally, a chance to do things as he wants to do them. A chance to think, a chance to rest. Finally Jack will _stay still_, and let the Doctor find his way. At first he doesn’t even try to stay away; like those wonderful hours every day when Jack sleeps and expects nothing of him, only this time he won’t _wake up_ and ruin it all. Just sleep, and sleep, blazing bright and steady and still, like - like home. A home that it is finally safe to leave, because he may return at any time he needs. Or even simply _wants_.

Eight hours in, when Jack has still definitively not awoken, the Doctor breaks down in tears very briefly; then he stands up, pushes his hair into order, tugs his shirt down, straightens his bowtie, and leaves the bedroom.

He is back in forty seven minutes, after two cups of tea, a check of the console room, and a leisurely perusal of a few shelves of his library. No need to cause himself distress.

After two days, the permanent buzz of anxiety that had colonised him some time during all that horrible _practice_ is beginning to fade. It had improved, of course, after Jack gave up his perverse insistence on leaving the Doctor unmoored for much too long; an utterly pointless practice, but somehow it had come to rule both their lives for months, with no result but needless pain. But now the Doctor is free not only of that, but of all interactions and negotiations at all, and it is dizzying.

Of course they will try again. And again, and again, if he wishes, because Jack will keep giving over his fire as long as they are making _progress_. The Doctor has ensured that his reports reflect progress.

But it has become a fine balancing act, forcing himself to give up that expansive rush before Jack revives - which he is managing to do in ever shorter intervals. And for the sake of progress he has allowed Jack to push him into trying again much too soon each time as well. Everything he does and every lie he tells, all to keep Jack willing when the Doctor himself is barely willing anymore; only afraid.

By the fifth day he is feeling more himself, and life is filled with a shocking lack of pain. The emptiness creeps and settles in slowly, like the tide, inexorable, filling him up; but it does not consume him. It has become almost easy to let go, with the firm assurance of coming back any time he pleases. Not at all _comfortable_, but more and more familiar, and every time he leaves and comes back successfully a little bit of the stifling fear chips away. More evidence that they have been going about this all wrong. Perhaps it is time to draw a line under all this suffering. He had offered Jack a bribe, once, to help him summon _willing_; perhaps it is time to follow through and renew the bait. After all, Jack has been bribing him all along.

Near the end of the eighth day of sleep, the Doctor is surprised to realise he _wants_ Jack to wake up.

-+-+-

When Jack wakes, he is alone. Bleary eyed and fuzzy headed and weak, he struggles to sit up, then gives up and falls back into the pillows when he still doesn't see the Doctor. Accelerated healing notwithstanding, it feels like it will be a few hours before he can competently walk; dare he wait? The Doctor promised not to leave the TARDIS, but his promises have historically been of questionable value. If, on the other hand, he simply finds it easier to be away from Jack now - that would be a welcome development, wouldn't it? It would be _good_ if the Doctor were able to regain some modicum of independence. So long as he did not become so free as to leave Jack entirely behind.

In time, Jack would forget him - which seems like the worst part of all.

The TARDIS hums quietly to him, comfortingly, but Jack doesn't want to be comforted - he wants to see the Doctor. He tries to sit up again, and manages to roll to his side and disarrange the duvet but not much else. Forehead against his cuffs, hands in hair pressed flat and uncomfortably oily, he tries to catch his breath, calm his racing heart, and wonders just how long he has been asleep.

The door opens, and that beautiful mop of dark hair precedes its very welcome owner into the room. "Jack? You're awake!" He grins broadly and hurries to the bed, all knees and elbows and so perfect Jack could weep. Jack reaches for him and the Doctor takes his hands, clasps them with fingers so much stronger than Jack's right now. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Jack assures him, voice rough. "Nothing at all. I was worried about you and I couldn't get up, but - nothing at all." He tugs, and the Doctor lays down next to him and gathers him close.

"Nothing to worry about." He sighs and kisses Jack's forehead. "What a pair we are, I was starting to wonder - almost eleven days this time, Jack, you must have been living on sheer _stubbornness_. I ask too much of you."

"There is no _too much_, Doctor. It's all yours. Everything I am." The Doctor's arms tighten around him and Jack relaxes, willing now to be comforted. “Thank you for staying safe.”

“Jack…” The Doctor shakes his head. “It terrifies you, doesn’t it. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you, you know that. But every day of my life, everything I’ve ever done, has been because I can’t bear confinement. I can’t change that for you.”

Jack swallows and presses his face to the Doctor’s chest. “I know,” he admits. “I don’t want you to be… someone you’re not. Not really. I’m sorry.” The Doctor holds him silently for a while; Jack stays silent too, feeling strength gradually return to him, testing his ability to make a fist every so often.

“I do understand the fear, though,” the Doctor says suddenly. “We’ve been going about this all wrong, Jack. It’s about trust, isn’t it. You don’t quite trust I won’t get myself killed when you’re not looking, and I don’t quite trust you’ll be there when I need you.” It feels like a punch to the gut. Jack’s breath leaves him in a sudden, pained rush. “And we’re _afraid_, Jack, we’re so afraid,” the Doctor continues hurriedly, before he can try to apologise. “We’ve been so afraid. But I’ve been careful, Jack, do you see? And when you were here sleeping, when I knew I could come back at any time - I wasn’t afraid. And I could let go. I need to trust you’ll be here, Jack.”

Feeling rather as though gravity has reversed itself, Jack lays still for a moment, then pushes himself up onto an elbow, reassuringly less shaky. The Doctor is looking up at him with those damning eyes, that earnestness that he has thought his downfall so many times - but what is there here to argue with? It’s true that he has had second thoughts, third, fourth, _seventeenth_ thoughts, about the course of action he has committed to, and in the privacy of his own mind he pulls no punches. It is, after all, important to know exactly what one should be hating oneself for. He is enabling an addict, feeding the Doctor’s need just often enough to keep the Doctor dependent on him, allowing himself to be used to the detriment of, potentially, the entire universe.

But all the time he has been afraid of the Doctor leaving him, the Doctor has been afraid of the same thing.

Jack is meant to stop the Doctor; he understands enough of the pattern of their intertwined timelines to see the story he should tell. The Doctor has always been a mere mortal, in the end. But if the Doctor needs stopping, someone else should be playing Jack’s part, because _mortal_ is the very last thing he wants. It isn’t perfect, but what more is there left to hope for? Better they should embrace the need, and live without the fear.

Laying his hand against the Doctor’s face, Jack strokes his cheek, smooths his hair back. If the Doctor wants him here, here he will stay. Of all the things Jack has ever promised this is the easiest and the most true. "I'm here," he says. "I'll always be here. I’ll be what you need. I won't push you away anymore."

-+-+-+-


	7. Victorious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: explicit sex, with toys and bondage and D/S and messy possessiveness. Fully consensual._

For a confused moment, Jack doesn’t know where he is; the storm is all there is. “Doc-” he opens his eyes and ends in a squeak, “_-tor?_” Burning eyes stare down into his, mad grin flashing teeth below them. Jack blinks but he still can’t see right, outlines blurring, appearances changing in the shifting currents of the Doctor’s uninhibited psychic projection. The only sure things are those terrifying eyes - and Jack himself, he supposes, which doesn’t help _him_ at all.

"You're back!" the Doctor chirps, cheerfully pinning Jack's arms and legs to the bed. The eerie resonance in his voice puts Jack in mind of a 600-pound canary. "Look, it worked! Isn't that magnificent?"

"It's wonderful," Jack agrees. He can feel claws the Doctor certainly doesn't have digging into his left arm, and the clouds wreathing the Time Lord's head occasionally seem to be a direct extension of wildly blowing hair. It's going to be an odd day. The Doctor shifts about and Jack realises his clothes have been dispensed with without his participation. He raises his eyebrows, politely inquisitive. "Rather forward of you."

"What? Oh, your clothes. It's no effort, I just changed it so you weren't wearing them in the first place."

Jack blinks. "I'm sure there's something in the superhero manual about frivolous usage of powers."

"Cheap tricks!" the Doctor exclaims nonsensically. He apparently hadn't been wearing clothes in the first place either, now. "Cheap tricks are always allowed."

"Like when I do the stage act?"

"No, _not_ when you - Jack, that's completely different, that's -"

Jack grins. "A cheap trick?"

The Doctor scowls at him. "_You're_ a cheap trick."

"No need to get personal. I'm just saying, lighten up. That was a terrible come-back, by the way." He still can't move, and the Doctor hasn't done anything more interesting than pinning him.

"I'll just change it to something better."

Jack peers up at him, trying to see the normal outlines of his face. "You can't do that," he says, not at all certain.

"Of course I can. Simple matter of shifting the timeline very precisely, takes a light touch, a good sense of finesse I must admit, but -"

"Are you going to fuck me or what? And _no_," he adds as the Doctor opens his mouth - his teeth look _sharp_ -! "you couldn't _already be fucking me_, start now like a normal person."

Face now reminiscent of an eagle's fierce aspect, the Doctor incongruously whines, "You're no fun."

"I am _extremely_ fun, and amazingly patient too. You have no idea how badly I want you right now." Jack bucks his hips fruitlessly, hoping to make the Time Lord _do_ something.

He doesn't move, but his smile is predatory. "Oh, yes, I do." Lowering his mouth to Jack's ear, he murmurs, "You don't think the effects are all one way, do you?" He laughs as Jack stares at him, and the howl of the storm rises around them. With no more sense of change than when he hadn’t been wearing clothes, Jack is bound, wrists and ankles stretched toward the corners of the bed. "You're right, I might as well have - _Jack_." Burning eyes going wide, the Doctor considers all the other ideas Jack has, if _that_ worked. "Aren't you… creative."

Jack tries to answer, but it comes out as a moan around the gag in his mouth. Hands bound behind him, knelt on the floor, he watches as the Doctor circles him slowly, trailing shadowy clouds like wings. He shudders as they brush against him, whines as the large plug shifts in his arse.

The Doctor pushes on it and Jack moans, face pressed into the mattress, skin burning from the vicious spanking he's just had. His fingers clutch wildly at the bedclothes as the Doctor's hand clamps tight around his balls, those claws still somehow very present. "Thank you," Jack gasps, "please, let me -"

The Doctor sucks hard on his cock and Jack yells inarticulately as he comes, vision going red for a moment as he writhes against the fingers pressing mercilessly on his prostate. Hanging his head he tries to catch his breath but now the Doctor is dragging _teeth_ down his oversensitised cock and Jack can’t move at all, wrists chained to the ceiling, ankles held uncomfortably far apart by a spreader bar, caressing tendrils of wind threatening to tear him to pieces.

Whining, Jack tries to pull away but the Doctor just clamps his hand tighter around the back of his neck and fucks his mouth harder. Confused and disorientated, Jack gags, tears welling up in his eyes, until he remembers what he is doing and can relax his throat again. He looks up to the golden eyes of his lover and can’t remember how he got here; not that it matters. The Doctor smiles down at him -

quizzically, as Jack shifts and moans on the bed, hands tied to the headboard, arse aching from the large plug in it.

“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea where you got that,” the Doctor says, “but you certainly seem to like it. I don’t think I would.”

“Got something,” Jack pants, wondering if sex with gods is always this confusing, “you do like.”

Delighted, the Doctor laughs; Jack can feel it on his skin like a million tiny snowflakes, like a flurry of electric sparks. His cock twitches and Jack groans in anticipation. “This is why I don’t gag you, Captain. If you’re to be silent, I want you to work at it; if I’m making you lose your mind, I want to know.”

“In situations like this -” Eyes falling closed, Jack moans as the Doctor trails teasing fingertips up the insides of his thighs; then he leans on them, putting more pressure on Jack’s very full arse. “_Gods_, Doctor, please - in, no, I said that part, the _suave_ and _debonair_ go out the window, if we had a window, ah!” The Doctor is mouthing his balls and in the shifting reality of the room it feels thrillingly dangerous; sometimes soft and cool, sometimes the pinpricks of pointed teeth, sometimes the terrifying impression of an enormous eagle’s beak. Jack lies very, very still. “And you’re left - aaah! - with _handsome_.”

“I’ll take it,” the Doctor says, and settles his weight over Jack’s hips.

"Fuck, _fuck_, fuck -" Jack doesn't know where the plug came from either, it's too big, too long, it's more than he can take like this, maybe if he could lie on his stomach -

Bouncing a bit, the Doctor says, "No, it's not. Don't whinge, Captain." Maybe if he arches his back, maybe if he moves his legs, maybe - nothing helps. It had taken a lot of patience on the Doctor's part to get it in, a lot of deep breaths and relaxing on Jack's part, but he hadn't realised it was going to _stay_ -!

"Doctor -"

"No, no, you wanted it. You still want it. No good being disingenuous, Captain." Smiling happily, the Doctor drops forward to his hands and rubs himself over Jack like a great cat, his shifting aspects sliding and rasping and tickling and burning by turns. His stormcloud wings block out Jack's view of the ceiling. Moaning hungrily, Jack arches up into him, which doesn't help his discomfort but does leave him gasping at the feel of the Doctor's cock sliding against his like a live thing. The seething mass of winds swirling about them lifts him up, prevents his pulling away, drowns him in sensation. "I like this," the Doctor says; Jack can barely hear him. "I know I said I would fuck you, Captain, but you seem, erm. Fairly well situated, for the moment. Would you mind if I just -"

"Go fuck yourself," Jack says, feeling very clever with the small portion of his brain he has left to think things like that.

The Doctor laughs at him again, teeth flashing bright in his jackal's mouth. Lowering his head, he licks at Jack’s lips, bites them, pushes his mouth open wide and wider for a devouring kiss; Jack can’t make sense of it anymore and gives up trying, satisfied that no matter what happens, it is the Doctor it is happening _with_, and that’s alright. His jaws close around Jack’s throat at the same time as his hand closes slick around Jack’s cock.

“_Pleeease_,” Jack groans as he shakes, muscles tensing as he thrusts helplessly, plug stretching him inside as his body tries to force it out.

“No,” the Doctor says, much too cheerfully. “If you lose that plug I’ll just find a bigger one.”

Threat heard and believed, Jack groans again - he’s not sure he’s stopped, since the plug went in - and tries to relax, spirit so willing but flesh occasionally a disappointment. Breathing deep, he closes his eyes, tilts his head back - and then the Doctor is sinking down onto his cock and Jack _yowls_ as his heels drum against - nothing, against nothing. He can’t feel the bed beneath him anymore, borne up on the wings of the storm. Arms still firmly tethered, he feels like some sort of bizarre kite, cock in ecstasy, arse in agony, sacrifice to the pleasure of a mostly-benevolent god.

“Jack, Jack,” his god is moaning, riding him with great conviction. “Everything comes back to you, Jack, all the universe, vast and bountiful and beautiful and here you are at the center, and here I am - ah! - gods, Jack, for just a little while - Jack, my Jack -!” His voice rises above the storm and Jack is gasping, his whole body full of light - Then the Doctor yells, the cry of an eagle, the scream of the winds whipping about their heads, and Jack drives up into him hard, physics no obstacle although his feet push against nothing but clouds. They are falling, tumbling head-over-heels, as Jack finds his painfully ecstatic release.

Back firmly against the bed again, Jack groans quietly as the Doctor rises off him. His eyes fly open at the tug against the plug. “Ngh -” he tries, and fails, to protest. “Aaah! Doc - wait - ah -” Burning eyes watching Jack writhe with evident pleasure, the Doctor keeps pulling steadily.

“This will work better if you relax,” he points out, tremendously unhelpful.

“Then - stop - pulling!” Jack gasps, trying to relax.

“You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult. There was rather a preponderance of timelines where you _didn’t_ keep it in, you know.”

Wrists bound to knees spread wide, Jack howls breathlessly as the Doctor painstakingly works something much too large into his arse. “I _told_ you,” he says, sounding mildly put out. “I don’t know why you’re surprised. This would be a lot easier if you would just relax.”

“Takes -” Jack howls again, shaking uncontrollably as he is forced open. “Time! Doctor!”

“You like it,” the Doctor assures him, watching his face avidly. “You could come again right now, although it would be awfully painful, I think. But you like that. You’ll do anything I want you to do, won’t you, Jack?” He _twists_, and Jack’s eyes roll back in his head. “Anything at all.”

Gasping, Jack tries to let go, to relax into the pressure; he yells as the plug _finally_ slips free. “What -”

“But we really don’t have time for that, as interesting as it would apparently be. Maybe some other time.” Knelt beside him, knee against his hip, the Doctor watches Jack curiously; his entire body somehow gives the impression of a smirk.

“Uh -”

The Cloister bell tolls.

“Playtime’s over, Captain.”

-+-+-

Jack looks charmingly confused as he tries to sit up, winces, realises his wrists are still restrained, rolls to his side, curls up, and moans lowly. Caressing his hip, smoothing a palm up his flank, the Doctor watches contentedly, ignoring the TARDIS's prodding for now; he couldn't have asked for more. Possessing all the power of that eternal flame is even more satisfying when he is fully able to appreciate the extent of it, and watching the immortal being that is Jack writhe, willingly submitting himself to pain and restraint and degradation at the Doctor's pleasure is, is - he hasn't words.

Not just submitting, but offering up visions of _more_. And _Rassilon_, the noises he makes!

Unable to resist, the Doctor runs his fingers across Jack's arse, over skin unsure of the extent of its abuse, smears the mess of lubrication around even further. Jack's submission, the Doctor suspects, is something akin to worship, and he is happy to take it as such. Jack moans and curls tighter as the Doctor draws wet patterns on his skin - then gasps and jackknifes in startled reflex as he slips two - three - four fingers into that delightfully capacious arse that will, apparently, take anything he chooses to inflict.

"_Doctor_ -!"

Forcing his hand in to the thumb against the involuntary contraction of muscles, the Doctor growls, "_Mine_," and Jack lays still. "Mine always."

"Yes," Jack sighs, and relaxes. It is, after all, his heart's desire. "Yours forever." He moans shamelessly, enthusiastically, impaled and ravished and owned, as the Doctor rolls him to his belly in the slick puddle on the bed.

"You are filthy, Captain," the Doctor observes, amused, sliding his fingers slowly out and back in.

"Good, isn’t it," Jack agrees, sounding entirely satisfied with the situation. He jolts, makes a beautiful startled noise as the Doctor’s fingers brush over his prostate. "Wasn't there something we needed to be doing?"

Perhaps there was, at that; the fire has grown searing at the edges of his mind and the Cloister bell has not stopped its slow alarm. Jack is such a delightful distraction, but he will not let the Doctor distract himself to destruction. "I suppose we could come back to this."

"No objections from me."

The Doctor reluctantly withdraws his hand from the heat inside his light in the darkness, watches for a moment as Jack struggles to adjust to emptiness again; he wipes his hand on Jack’s back, moves to free his hands from the bed. He doesn't free them from each other. "Come along, Captain."

Jack pauses in pushing himself up to stare at him incredulously. "What, just like this?"

"Just like this. Filthy, slippery, used, and owned. Objections?" A bright flush is rising in Jack's face as the Doctor speaks; he shakes his head, eyes gone deep and hungry.

"I like you like this," Jack whispers, and something inside the last Time Lord sings a joyous chord of triumph. Never again the fear of losing this fire, never again the fear of that catastrophic emptiness. Jack will never be able to deny him. He has _won_.

Destroying the death lying in wait for him all these years feels almost trivial, by comparison.

-+-+-+-


	8. Passing fancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: emotional abuse, dub-con sexual contact, mild body horror, disability and abusive caretaking._

The first time Jack leaves, he doesn’t think about it at all. He wakes in bed, the Doctor still sprawled beside him on his belly, snoring softly, apparently not having moved at all since he collapsed on the wet spot. Jack had pulled the duvet up and left everything for tomorrow, now that there are tomorrows to count on.

But it is tomorrow now, or maybe just slightly later today, and he is restless. He takes a quick shower, and gets dressed, and doesn’t think about why he pulls on boots when he still doesn’t bother, most days. The Doctor is still asleep as he leaves the bedroom quietly, rolled over into the warm place Jack left in the bed. Face slack, mouth slightly open, he doesn’t look like a destroyer of worlds or an unrecovering addict or any of the other things Jack knows him to be. Sometimes sleep reveals the truth of people, but the lies are layered too thick over the Doctor for that; or perhaps the dreamer of impossible dreams is all he truly is.

Without really thinking about his destination, either, Jack finds himself in the console room, running his hands gently over the controls. “I need some air,” he tells the TARDIS, suddenly certain. “I need to get out, just for a few minutes. Somewhere nice. Somewhere with… good food. There’s a town called Grenadine, on Paracelsus…” Carefully, he sets the destination, and adds, “Please, darling. He’s asleep, I’ll be back before he knows it.”

When he throws the lever and hears her engines, his heart leaps.

He doesn’t realise he has no form of payment whatsoever until after he has eaten, so he leaves unpaid for lack of other options and disappears into the town. He doesn’t think about why it’s not the direction he came from.

And he doesn’t think about why he spends the afternoon looking for a quick stage gig. He is an excellent singer, he promises, and he demonstrates, and despite being badly out of practice, eventually someone takes him up on it. When he looks down halfway through his set and sees the Doctor watching him with quiet, yearning misery, his voice breaks for a moment. He calls a break for a drink of water after he finishes the song, and doesn’t return, leaving any potential payment behind as well; he hopes it evens out, in some karmic way.

The Doctor holds tightly to his hand, silent, as they walk back to the TARDIS together.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says finally, and means it. “It was cruel of me.”

“Yes,” the Doctor whispers, not looking at him. “It was.”

-+-+-

Jack doesn't think about it the second time either, but only because he doesn't want to. The Doctor had been afraid to sleep for weeks, lest Jack disappear again; had extracted a promise not to from him every night. Jack is old enough to know that time breaks all promises, but he does try to keep the ones he can. He made no promise, this night.

The TARDIS's controls still respond to his touch, but this may be the last time they do so. Setting them for Ophicche, Jack takes a deep breath, doesn't think about the likely consequences, and throws the lever.

The world is not dead; far from it. But it is empty of living people, human or any other kind, or soon will be, the planet having shrugged off its invaders with ruthless efficiency. Jack had lived here for thirty years, at first in the coastal cities, then the towns and camps of the high plateaus when cloud sailing became, for a time, his life. He steps out into the familiar highveld landscape, low brush tugging at his trousers, puffs of yellow dust rising from his footsteps. It is the end of the dry season, and he supposes it's just as well, or he might try to get out his sailboard and ride the storms down to the sea. It wouldn’t be safe in his current state of mind - not to mention lack of practice - and the Doctor would be extremely unhappy with him.

As if he isn’t going to be, already. Jack stops thinking and starts walking.

As he crests a ridge and the camp comes into sight, a feeling of relief and homecoming washes through him. The camp is just as he left it, if disturbingly silent and still; even in the dry season someone is always up here, but only the dead remain, now. The sound of insects was a shrill accompaniment on his walk through the veld but here there is nothing but the never-ceasing wind, the occasional flap of a poorly-secured storm tarp. In an excess of paranoia, he set the TARDIS to come the very day the camp had been evacuated, or as near as he could figure, in any case; he had been pretty far gone by then. Just in case the Doctor got some bright idea to try to remove his vortex manipulator before he could retrieve it. He had put it away, stasis locked and bio-sealed, when it became clear he would be living out the duration of the plague, and here it should remain; but he knows better than to underestimate the Doctor.

In the wall of the cellar of his house is a concealed pocket safe, a small bit of folded space he had brought with him to this world. Jack disarms it, gives it a drop of blood, lets it taste the artron energy he bears. Leaving the stasis field intact, he extracts only his vortex manipulator; the rest can stay, safe from time, unnecessary reminders of a life before he took up permanent residence in the TARDIS. He will bring no more potential hostages back with him than he must. He stops thinking that uneasy thought as well.

Closing and rearming the safe, Jack retraces his steps without looking back. When he reaches the TARDIS he does not enter, but stands looking over the cliff whose edge she landed at, down the deep dry canyons that will channel wild torrents when the rains begin, to the green lowlands, the red-brown band of the coast that fades into the yellow-green of the sea hidden beyond the horizon even from these heights. It feels _real_ in a way things haven’t for a long time, and Jack wonders again what he is trading, what unseen cost is being extracted from him, from them both, for his heart’s desire. _Is_ it his heart’s desire if he is running from it, or only some distorted reflection? Or is it his heart that is distorted.

He lays his hand against the TARDIS and she sings to him, worry and reassurance in equal measure. He simply hasn’t been thinking; how could he run from the Doctor? Turning his back on the past, he enters the TARDIS, buries his vortex manipulator in a drawer in the bedroom he used to call his own, and puts on the tea. The Doctor will be waking soon.

-+-+-

Ten days later he stumbles on the stairs on the console room, falls badly enough the Doctor fusses at him to check for any injury in the infirmary; Jack laughs it off, waltzes him around the platform until he is laughing as well. For the next two days Jack avoids activity as much as possible and watches the Doctor like a hawk, cursing himself and every stupid idea he’s ever had, every idiotic thing he's ever done, terrified that his moment of rebellion (against _what?_) has brought this plague upon the man he would damn the universe to keep safe. He can't hold his fork at dinner by the second night and the Doctor forces him to the infirmary, finally. Jack falls asleep happy that the Doctor still shows no signs; but the Doctor is terrified that he is falling asleep at all. When he wakes he can no longer move. The Doctor is watching him solemnly, perched on a seat, hand touching his but not going so far as to hold it reassuringly.

“I am disappointed in you, Captain,” he says softly, and no more. Jack had been expecting insults, unanswerable questions, anxious recriminations; this is far worse. He closes his eyes and hopes for a reassurance that the Doctor is immune, but it doesn't come, and eventually the Doctor rises and takes himself silently away. Jack waits, and when the Doctor returns to strap a saline pack to his arm he understands he is being punished, and wonders how long he will last.

The first two days are an agony of waiting, of listening for any sign the Doctor has succumbed; every falter of his voice, every less than steady step has Jack imagining him dying the way he saw so many others die. There is plenty to fuel his imagination. The Doctor is no more able to stay away than he is any other day. Every few hours he is back, not for Jack's comfort but for his own; he brings a book and sits by Jack, hand on his ankle or wrist.

“I understand wanting to get away,” he says on the second day. He hadn’t spoken to Jack at all the first day, but conversed with his books, and Jack listened to him, for the sound of his steps, tested the sureness of his fingers against memory as he replaced the saline pack. “You can't think I don't. But I am trying, Jack, every day I am _trying_, because it's better than not, isn't it? We're building a new life, one step at a time, _together_, except you keep running off. Isn't this what you've always wanted?”

Tears are leaking down Jack's face, falling into his ears, because it is, it _is_, everything he's ever wanted is here and he put it in jeopardy for a whim, for a passing fancy, for a childish attempt at rebellion. He moans inarticulately, hoping the Doctor will understand he means _I'm sorry_, but instead the Doctor gets up and walks away, dropping his book gracelessly on the bench. Terrified he will fall with no one to care for him, Jack moans again desperately, but there is no response. By the time the Doctor returns Jack can no longer make any voluntary noise at all.

A new kind of agony begins on the third day; now that his somatic system is taken care of, the virus, or prion, or whatever it is, will make its creative way through the rest of his brain and nervous system with all sorts of exciting effects. Last time he had had some fantastical visual effects, as well as a very thorough tour of every nerve in his body by way of fiery itching. This time he has the disturbing sensation that his left hand is a metre further to the right than he is certain it is, and pain behind his right eye more than bad enough to distract him from the first. It feels like something is crawling under his right knee. He doesn’t care; he wants the Doctor, will gladly take this new agony in trade if he could just know the Doctor is well. He would be showing it by now. By the time the Doctor returns, an hour later, Jack’s left hand feels somewhere near his feet. Not that it’s easy to tell, when he can’t move any of them anyway. The room smells yellow.

Sitting down carefully, the Doctor sets his hand over Jack’s left wrist, and now he knows where it is. Oddly, with that pinned down the rest of his left arm feels mistily undefined. “I’m being cruel to you, I think,” he says quietly, “but I don’t know how to stop.” He says nothing for a long moment, and Jack, perforce, waits. The pain behind his right eye is creeping up and back. “But I’m still so angry at you. This is your plan, we’ll stay in here together until we can’t stand each other and then you’ll run away? Make me chase you? You didn’t even know I was immune to it, did you? You just… went.” There are tears leaking down Jack’s face again; his autonomic nervous system is still functional and his breathing quickens, heart races for a moment in the relief of fear. “Rassilon’s teeth,” the Doctor swears, and tilts Jack’s head to the side so he can see his furious, baffled face. “You didn’t know until just now. What are we doing to each other?”

_I'll do better_, Jack promises silently; he tries hard to think loudly enough for it to get through. _I'll be better._ It works, he thinks, because the Doctor narrows his eyes.

“Your promises aren't worth a pinch of dark to me right now, Captain. They really aren't.” He pushes Jack's head back to centre, stands, and strides out, his steps strong and sure. The room smells like silhouettes against a bright sky now, and the inside of Jack's mouth feels much too big to fit, and something is on fire near his right kidney. With immense concentration he closes his eyes.

None of it will kill him. With saline packs to stave off the dehydration, he doesn’t know what will. Starvation, possibly, if the Doctor stays angry for long enough; or maybe given long enough the plague will stop his lungs or heart as well. It had in a few cases on Ophicche, he thinks, but most deaths were from kidney failure due to dehydration. Slow and conscious and lingering and very, very uncomfortable. At least this time he doesn’t have to lie in his own shit whilst he waits, although perhaps infection and sepsis would be quicker than starvation. He spends a few minutes pondering whether he would rather his heart or his lungs go first; better to breathe in a dead body, or to be unable to gasp for breath as he fades? The second sounds too much like drowning, or hanging, or any other sort of asphyxiation to be interesting; he hopes his heart goes first, so he can find out if it feels like bleeding out without the bleeding.

He hopes the Doctor relents before then. Jack suspects he is far more afraid than angry, and not at all ready for Jack to die again yet if the frequency of his visits is anything to go by. But he is going to die; it is only a question of when, and how. Jack's preferences are very different from the Doctor's, he suspects.

It is hours, longer than usual, until the Doctor returns. When he does, he doesn’t speak, but climbs onto the bed with Jack, tucking himself against Jack’s side. He burrows his hand under Jack’s shirt, absently traces ribs and muscles. It tickles and Jack’s muscles twitch which seems to amuse the Doctor. “Nothing voluntary left, isn’t that right? Can you even blink?” He raises himself up onto his elbow to see Jack’s face, and Jack slowly closes his eyes, opens them again. One gets stuck halfway and the Doctor smirks. “Still, plenty of involuntary responses left. You humans, wired so strangely. And barely psychic, what do you do when this sort of thing happens?” Jack can't glare at him but he laughs; strange, fey mood he is in. “Why do you run from me, Jack?”

Jack doesn't know why he ran, but he might do it again right now, if he could.

Something of that comes through to the Doctor, because his face falls to a more standard gravity. His hand continues to stroke Jack's chest, down his sides. “What do you think that was like for me, Jack, I didn't know you'd been anywhere, I didn't know what was going on at all, but there you were suddenly unable to hold a _fork_, passing out like that when you hardly sleep at all usually. And already past explaining when you woke up again. Why couldn't you just tell me? Why sneak away? Just a quick check of the log to figure it out, but why there, Jack? Why expose us to that plague?”

_I'm sorry_, Jack thinks very loudly, to drown out the overwhelming relief of an answer he hadn't dared speculate on: his vortex manipulator is still safe. Whatever happens, he still has that lifeline. Recalling the feeling of homecoming at the sight of the camp, the familiar leap of his heart as he stood at the cliff, he offers them as explanation and the Doctor seems satisfied.

“It was stupid. Don't do it again.” He frowns thoughtfully down at Jack, gaze traveling from his frozen face to the twitching muscles of his chest and belly, and further. “Are you…” Pulling his hand from Jack's shirt, he presses it, firmly and without warning, to the front of Jack's trousers. Jack would give nearly anything to be able to make any noise at all, but all he can do is close his eyes at the rush of sensation as the Doctor opens his trousers, squeezes, strokes him slowly. His breathing speeds up slightly, which is something. The distraction from the fire eating away at his belly is very welcome, and he is desperate for any sort of touch to keep his body from feeling like pieces are disconnecting. “Of course you are. Completely, utterly at my mercy, why wouldn't you be. And you did it to yourself.”

He is wrong to suppose that Jack finds the situation arousing, but Jack's body does like the touching and he is willing to go along with it. The Doctor’s mood is sufficiently disturbed that Jack may not enjoy it, but at least it will be real, and he will _feel_ it.

“You’re mine, Captain, never forget it,” the Doctor murmurs as he continues stroking Jack’s cock. “And I am yours, and if I can’t run from you you mustn’t run from me either.” His hand is steady and there are bright sparks lighting up Jack’s nerves, shuddering spikes of sensation. Jack wonders what his body is doing, if he is actually trembling. His world narrows incrementally to the movement of the Doctor's hand; he can't help it, and the Doctor offers no other touch. One by one he loses track of his limbs, hands and feet gone to some realm of mist he cannot reach, arousal fighting a losing battle with the fire already burning in him, with the creeping dread of annihilation. Part of him still feels these mortal terrors. Saliva is accumulating in his throat where he has had very little for days. It will choke him soon, maybe, that would be a pleasantly quick way to go -

“Don't,” the Doctor gasps, panicked hands rolling Jack onto his side, turning his head, opening his mouth. “Don't go, I'm sorry, don't go.” Proprioception returns in a disorientating, full-body rush and Jack still cannot react at all. The Doctor’s hands dart like a flurry of birds about his face, touching his hair, gently opening his eyes. He rearranges Jack’s clothes, sets him back into some marginally comfortable position. “I don’t want to kill you,” he says wretchedly, looking down at Jack. “Why is the answer always kill you?”

-+-+-+-


	9. Circles and circles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: explicit non-consensual sex, non-consensual bondage and breath play, suicide threats, pretty much every kind of abuse._

Jack hadn't been able to beg him to be careful, of course, but his fear had been palpable, and that wouldn't do at all. How could he give up his life with full willing, if he is afraid it will hurt the Doctor? To be sure, the Doctor had been torn as well; he _didn't_ want Jack dead again, not at all, not so soon, gone from his proper place at the center -

Still, he had to die. Would inevitably do so in some fashion, some time soon. And once the Doctor accepted that, it seemed only logical that he should have what benefit from it he could.

So he had promised. "Of course I won't try to hold on to it this time, Jack," he had said, petting dark strands of hair above his Captain's immobile face, showing none of the anger at being forced into this ridiculous choice by his ill-considered actions. "I'm in no fit state yet. And I should like you to come back quickly, please - but it would give us a lower bound on the time to expect, at least. You actually want to die. Don't lets waste the opportunity."

But Jack has ruined that, as well; has failed the test of willing obedience, and now the Doctor is suffering for it.

Jack, he has decided, will suffer too.

Pacing deliberately, ignoring the annoyingly repetitive noise outside, the Doctor circles his sun, circles and circles and circles, waiting for its reignition. Jack hangs limply, cuffs chained to the ceiling, ankles attached to a wide spreader bar; he feels vulnerable like this, and vulnerability is what the Doctor wants. He usually enjoys being the plaything of a god, but he won't enjoy it today.

Finally, that itch under his skin, the promise of order returning to the world. Seven hours and three minutes, nearly an hour past Jack's best time. The thought renews his anger and the Doctor steps forward, sets left hand to the back of his Captain's neck, clamps right hand over his mouth and nose, and waits. Time drawing tight around them, the Doctor shudders at the feel, tilts his head back as the moment comes -

Muscles tense under his hands, skin heats, blood flows again in its endless circuit -

And Jack tries to take a breath.

The utter, mindless terror in his eyes is intensely satisfying, the way he contorts to no avail - because of course they are in a timeline where the Doctor remembered to bolt the spreader bar to the floor. The _power_ of his hands, to deny life to that which must be alive! Jack's eyes are rolling desperately in his head, arms jerking, body twisting in his attempt to free himself, unable to make a single sound. Is this how he looks when he revives underwater? No wonder he hates drowning so. In space, nothing to fill his lungs no matter how he tries? Buried alive, dirt choking mouth and nose -

Not his thoughts, those are Jack’s memories leaking over and he _doesn’t like them_. Enough. The Doctor moves his hand and Jack sucks air in a tearing, throat-shredding gasp. The Doctor slides his left hand around so his thumb is on Jack's throat, a reminder.

"What sort of time do you call this, Captain?"

"You said you wouldn't hold on to it!" Jack protests between gasps, terror still in his eyes.

Pressing hard on his throat, the Doctor orders, "Try again."

"The Cloister bell -"

This time the Doctor covers his mouth and nose again and Jack whimpers desperately, throat working, body trembling. "You were meant to go _willingly_, Captain, and come back _quickly_, and you've failed me. Do you have any idea what it feels like, waiting with all of Time in your mind, flames licking at the edges? No, of course not. I am feeling distinctly _singed_, Captain, and I am disappointed in you, and I am going to make sure you understand that."

"I'm sorry!" Jack gasps as soon as the Doctor releases him, which is more on message. "Doctor, I'm sorry, I promise, I want to do better, I want to understand - what I did wrong, everything you want from me, but please, won't you let go the fire first?"

Suspicious, the Doctor pulls away, circles again. "No, what fun would that be? It's better like this."

He reaches for a different timeline and Jack is sobbing, trying to apologise around the handle of the flogger the Doctor has stored between his teeth. "Do shut up," the Doctor says, and spanks him hard on the delightfully red, welted skin of his arse. "I don't want to hear your whinging."

Curious, he tries another where he was lazier, simply tying Jack to the bed face down. He moans as he thrusts slowly into the searing heat of Jack's arse; the heady warmth of it seems to drive away the more destructive fire filling his mind. Despite the lack of anything objectionable, Jack is still crying apologies and pleas for him to stop. "What is _wrong_ with you? I thought you liked this."

Back to the first and he is kissing Jack to shut him up, taking from him what he won't give; his silence, his willingness. Jack has never been able to stop him. Why is he trying?

As easy as it would be, he doesn’t care enough to find out.

"Please," Jack whimpers as the Doctor slides slick fingers into his arse. "Please, I'll do anything you want, I'll suffer all you want, Doctor, but you've got to let go first."

"You'll suffer _first_," the Doctor says angrily, tired of listening, "and the more you ask me to stop the longer it will be. So _shut up,_ Captain!" He isn't even hard. How is he not hard? He isn't cooperating _at all_. "Can't you do _anything_ right today?" the Doctor demands, reaching down to squeeze Jack's limp cock.

"Can't you hear the bell? How long has it been?" He can't even manage to shut up properly. "It's going to kill you, Doctor, you're holding a gun to _your own head!_"

And there - _there_ is the pain he has been searching for. Smiling darkly, the Doctor steps back, raises a hand to caress Jack's panicked face, looks into his wide, helpless eyes. "Come," the Doctor offers, "and I'll stop."

Face draining of color, Jack makes a noise very much as though the Doctor had slid a dagger into that taut, vulnerable belly. Helpfully, he ducks his head to bite at Jack’s throat, runs a finger over his balls; tugs that dagger to the side to spill his guts to the floor. Jack moans sickly and the Doctor thinks to wonder what he is seeing, feeling; are his fingers claws again, his teeth fangs? Still, most days his Captain would find that exciting. He strokes Jack’s cock, as best he can in the circumstances, but still not a twitch.

“Please,” Jack whispers, eyes shut, failing him and fully cognizant of it, “please, Doctor, I can’t, I can’t when you’re holding yourself hostage, _please put the gun down_ -”

Watching Jack crumble away before him into hopeless despair is so intensely satisfying he nearly stops there, nearly brings himself off over Jack's trembling form, but there is plenty of time left for a good fuck _too_, wring a little more pleasure for him, a little more pain for Jack, out of the day. He will forgive Jack, of course. He always will. But taking possession of that eternal fire of his in righteous anger, that is an experience he would like to have as well.

Hand on Jack’s back, the Doctor bends him forward as far as he can - which sounds fairly painful, but so it goes - and pushes his cock slowly home, groaning in relief. Here with Jack the fire is _right_, the burning reduced to a pleasant heat reaching out to fill all the world. Thrusting languidly, he lets Jack up, kisses his shoulder, pulls his hair to tilt his head back and watches silent tears slip down his cheeks. He licks one of them away and Jack shudders, clenches briefly around his cock. It tastes of brine and freshly broken heart.

“Of all the ways to fail me,” the Doctor murmurs, feeling bright, so bright. “Tied up with my cock up your arse and all I want you to do is come, Jack, come for me, and you can’t even get it up. You could stop this right now, but instead -” Biting down on Jack’s shoulder, savouring the pliant press of heated flesh around his cock, the Doctor moans; everything feels slow, and bright, and big, like the whole universe is in attendance on them here, gods together for a little while, like a whole sun inside his mind -

and then the top blows off and -

he _screams_, blinded, caught in a whirling firestorm, head exploded into madness.

Jack is shaking him, screaming back. “Let it go, Doctor, I don’t care how, I don’t care where, _let it go!_”

He flails wildly, shifting a hundred billion timelines to unknown effect, breaking - everything is breaking - everything but - Jack wraps him tight in his arms, ties him down close against the only steady thing in all the universe. “Stay with me, Doctor, hold on, please stay with me -”

It's no choice of his, but there he stays; where would he go. After the storm passes Jack puts him to bed, stays by him as he begins to navigate the wreckage of his mind.

"We're not doing that again, Doctor," Jack vows, but it’s a day too late; he’s trapped now, time sense warped and broken. He can’t find his way without Jack anymore.

-+-+-

“Why did you _do_ it, Doctor?” Jack moans, head in his hands, knees drawn up, back to the Doctor as he lies listlessly in bed. “All this time, every time, I could do it because I trusted you wouldn’t hold on so long you hurt yourself.” He never can again. _They_ never can again, and sometimes… sometimes it had been brilliant. But it had always been wrong.

“I was angry,” the Doctor replies dully. Everything has been dull about him, since. “And I expected you back sooner.”

The anger of a god is a capricious thing, Jack knows, striking like lightning at the easiest target. “I can't - Doctor, I did the best I could -” He wants to howl it, to shake his mad, broken god until he understands, _he did the best he could_. But what’s the use, now?

“I wanted to hurt you, and nothing hurts you like failing what I ask.”

Nothing, except - Jack pulls his head down further. Could he have even regenerated, or would he have been lost forever, consumed by Time? “Except you _dying_. Dying because I -”

Cool fingertips brush his back. “I’m sorry, Jack. At no point was it my intent to kill myself, but the threat of it… At the time, I enjoyed it. Enjoyed how much it hurt you. I don’t, now. I’m sorry. It wouldn’t have been your fault, no matter what I said,” he adds, quietly.

“I can’t do it again,” Jack whispers.

“Neither can I,” the Doctor answers, shattered and hopeless, and it doesn’t make things better in the slightest.

For perhaps the first time in his life, the Doctor submits to being cared for without complaint. He asks nothing at all of Jack, but thanks him for all he does - and seems to orient himself unconsciously by his movements, like a flower to the sun, Jack the steady point at the centre of his universe. The sun in his sky.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Jack doesn’t want it.

He wants several contradictory things, and a few more besides. He wants to hold the Doctor close and never let go, that he might never come into danger; he wants never to see his face again, that smiled whilst destroying Jack in that stunningly, personally cruel way. He wants to forget it, and go back to living their life of mutual bribery; he wants to do it again but better, in the timeline where the Doctor was right and he had time to grind Jack down to dust and then get rid of the fire with no ill effects. Jack still has a great deal of guilt to work off, after all. He wants the Doctor to orbit something else, _anything_ else; just for a little while.

He doesn’t want to be forgiven, and he doesn’t want the Doctor guilty again, and he doesn’t want the TARDIS crippled for who knows how long by the Doctor’s misjudgement.

But most of all he doesn’t want the empty bed he saw so vividly as the man he followed into hell fucked him with a gun to his own head, so he endures. Once he stops wanting to never see the Doctor again, it all becomes a lot easier.

-+-+-+-


	10. A matter of time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The last chapter was awful, and the next chapter is awful, but this one is just sad. I'm so sorry about this story you guys, the only redeeming quality of it is the relief that it's not what really happened._

The Doctor, it seems, has finally broken himself worse than Jack can fix. For a long time he simply drifts aimlessly after Jack, content so long as he is near; he seems dissociated, looking out at Jack from eyes like empty wells in his face, the lack of affect disquieting when compared to his usual animated self. He has broken the TARDIS as well; not for nothing she had forced him outside every time previously. Jack does the best he can, and spends his nights holding the Doctor close, reminding himself how much worse it could have been.

He promises not to leave again, of course, and with the quieter shape of life to get used to and the assurance of his vortex manipulator hidden away it is many years before he feels the need to do so. His promise hadn't included a time limit; promises, Jack is coming to suspect, may be a bad choice of currency between himself and the Doctor. Time wears them away.

And so, the third time Jack leaves, he is well aware of what he is doing - and why. It’s not to hurt the Doctor, although that may be an unavoidable side effect. It’s not because he truly wants to leave, and it’s not because he has any intent of staying away. It is simply because life is change, and their lives have changed so little in years they might as well be dead. This wasn't what he wanted. A good old-fashioned time-hopping chase is surely just what they need to get the blood flowing again.

The TARDIS's controls are locked to him, but she is no prison; he can still open and close the door. One day when they are resting in space and not the vortex, he digs out his vortex manipulator, leaves a note on the console, and steps out the door: _catch me if you can_. It doesn't occur to Jack that it might pose any difficulty to the Doctor at all.

He goes to New Earth, to watch the construction of New Luna. He gets two tickets to one of the best performances of Hamilton in the 32nd century, but when the Doctor doesn’t appear he tucks them away, perhaps for later, and leaves instead. He visits the Abundant Harvest on Ibra and makes an utter fool of himself, caught between the thrill of being out on his own and the misery of wishing the Doctor were there to enjoy it with him. He didn’t want to run away. He just wanted to get _out_. For a little while, and play chase maybe.

Doesn’t the Doctor want him back? Doesn’t he need him?

If he settles down, stops moving around, maybe the Doctor will come. If he waits. Jack is good at waiting. He has found no joy in traveling alone.

Jack picks a planet he’s never heard of called Talifer Six, on the grounds that if he has never heard of it, perhaps nothing disastrous happens there. A colony world of mines and farms, it is built on the ruins of an earlier, non-human colony, which was built on the ruins of a yet-older colony. The people there call it Good Enough, or in years of bad weather, Good Enough For A While. It’s good enough for Jack. Farming has the advantage of a wide open sky, so that is what he picks. He hires on as a day labourer at first, sure the Doctor will be coming to get him any day, but he doesn't. Weeks turn into months and Jack begins to build a life almost by accident, friends made at the local, his affinity for technology a boon amongst the machinery of farming. Living; one of his many talents. He misses the Doctor with a familiar dull ache that never goes away, misses the comfort of the TARDIS fiercely, but after a year he sometimes forgets to expect them around every turn. After two years the painful moment of confusion at waking up alone fades, mostly. After five years, he can't quite remember what the Doctor smells like, which contributes significantly to the occasional day on which he simply pulls his pillow over his head and doesn't get up. Ten years in, he doesn't do that anymore; he has taken up drinking again, instead.

Wandering in town one day, he happens to look down from the clouds beginning to darken the sky and stops in shock. “River!” he exclaims, with a deep sense of relief - perhaps between the two of them, they can find the Doctor - but she smiles at him without recognition.

“Dr River Song, yes; have we met? Or,” she eyes him speculatively, smile growing, “is that something I can look forward to?”

Jack has yet to encounter a River who doesn’t know him, but he is fairly certain the first time she met him was on one of her jailbreak dates with the Doctor, and this is certainly not that. He had thought, at a glance, that she was well past that time, but he must be mistaken. Taking a step back, he smiles regretfully, trying to hide the disappointment. “Sorry, must have misjudged. We’ll meet eventually, yes.”

River nods, one time traveler to another, and winks. “I hope it’s soon,” she says cheerfully, and turns away.

He tries to avoid her thereafter; it's not so hard, between his work and her tendency to stay at her dig. It is nearly two years before he runs into her again. Sitting at the bar in a quiet pub, Jack is trying to drink away the memory of the combine he had fixed that day, and the two kids it had mauled. It is large machinery, it happens: Jack himself is missing fingers now, a chunk out of his leg. He'll get it all back when he dies again, of course, but then there will be questions and it turns out, given the opportunity, he prefers not to die. That realisation had been slow coming.

It always hits him harder when it's kids.

River slides in beside him, asks for cold water and whisky on the rocks, and turns toward Jack as he glances at her. “The handsome mystery man.”

“Dr River Song. Long day?”

“They're all long days. And the dust.” She raises her hands, shakes out her hair. “Have we met yet?”

Jack laughs. He doesn't know when they first meet, in River's timeline; he had thought some other time, but he can’t remember now what he was waiting for. “Why not? Jack Harkness,” he says, holding out his hand and grinning. She takes his hand and he pauses, confused, because that's not his name here - but she has always known him as Jack Harkness, hasn't she? “Hensee, sorry. I'm Jack Hensee here.”

“Here?” River raises an eyebrow eloquently. “You've been here a while, I think.”

“Sure,” Jack says, enthusiasm dampened slightly. “Waiting for someone.” He takes another swallow of the local rotgut, which isn't bad as these things go. Airy, somehow, bluish brown with a sour burn.

“Will you be here much longer, then?”

“There's no telling, really. I waited for him for a hundred and forty years once. Got all the time in the world.” River is watching him, sharply inquisitive. Maybe that was an odd thing to say to a new acquaintance - but it's _River_, and he's been on this dirtball so long. “You ever met someone called the Doctor?”

She stares at him for a long moment, eyes gone opaque. “I think you know I have.”

Shrugging acknowledgement, Jack looks away. “He'll be back for me someday.”

“I thought he'd be back for me, too,” River sighs, starting on her whisky. “Ask me how that's turned out. I'm an archaeologist now, and a historian in my spare time, working on a history of the Doctor. Stories, legends, they're everywhere. The Doctor, not so much.”

Jack laughs ruefully. “Have I got stories for you. Oh, River.”

It's a comfort, even if she doesn't know him yet. With her, Jack can speak of other times, other worlds, of the man he ransomed the universe to keep at his side and then ran away from. She has been in the TARDIS, kissed the Doctor and nearly killed him, given up her remaining regenerations to save him. She has never been to Lake Silencio, and never will. One day, when they meet, she pulls a book from her bag and sets it on the table between them. “He left me this.”

Carefully, wistfully, Jack brushes the blue leather of the book with a fingertip, traces the lines of the TARDIS. Of his home. The wave of longing that inundates him is so strong he can’t speak, can’t look up; he doesn’t collapse, doesn’t howl, doesn’t breathe until the pain recedes, and then he blinks away the moisture in his eyes and still doesn’t look up. “The TARDIS.”

“She sang to me,” River offers, hesitantly. Jack is out of practice hiding pain, maybe. “I’ll never forget it.”

“She does that,” he agrees.

At first Jack only tells her the good stories - although of course she has heard a variety in her travels - but her enthusiasm for the topic starts looking like hero worship eventually and that’s a bad look for River. “He would be the first to tell you he's no sort of hero,” he cautions, attempting to put more emphasis on the devastation left behind sometimes, on the hard choices _someone_ has to make, all too often the Doctor. Of his own hard choices, Jack says little; vanity, maybe, or just a desire to keep his confidante. Of the legends of the Fury and the Chained God, the Sep and fractured time, Jack says nothing at all, nor of the life he has lived with the Doctor since.

She dutifully records all the details Jack provides, but he suspects the profile she is building of the Doctor has already been badly skewed by his partisanship. It isn’t that Jack doesn’t see his faults, not at all; he has experienced them, survived them, in very literal ways. It is just that Jack wants all of it.

“You love him,” River observes, lounging in his flat in town.

“Of course I love him,” Jack says, frowning. “That’s not suddenly some sort of problem, is it?”

She waves her hand dismissively. “No, I mean… there’s always friends, companions. I’ve even got a couple with you, I think; they match up well with some of your stories. But you - this is the kind of undying love poets write about. Why are you here?”

Jack laughs, but it tastes like bitter ashes. He can’t say _I’ve traded our futures for a life together, and now we can’t escape._ “Undying, yeah. Sometimes you just need a break, you know? But I can’t find him any more than you can. I’m good at waiting.” She eyes him sceptically, but doesn’t ask again.

For another five years River comes and goes, but in the end her obligations take her permanently away. “I’ll try to check back,” she promises, “see if he’s come for you yet. I’m sorry to have missed him.”

“He’ll be sorry as well,” Jack says, not sure it’s true. What timeline does the Doctor remember, how attached could he have been to her in the few interactions they had had so far in any case? Much more honestly, he adds, “I’ll miss you.”

River winks saucily at him. “We’ll meet again, mystery man.” Jack laughs, and kisses her once more, and lets her go with a smile; but he is no longer certain they will. When would they have? How could they?

-+-+-

Another decade passes as they seem to on Good Enough - slowly and simply - and Jack acquires a bit of land, a share of the sky. He has a shed, and sometimes, when things are very broken, people bring him puzzles to keep in the shed and work on during all those sleepless hours.

He has a pond, too, and one night he gets a puzzle running again when he hadn't expected to and everything goes badly awry. He gets to know his pond much better; from the inside out, as it were. When death spits him back out onto solid ground a number of tries later, coughing up muddy water and covered in pond weeds, the Doctor is waiting for him.

For one insane moment it doesn't seem odd at all; then Jack's brain engages.

"Where the _hell_," he demands, between choking coughs that taste like a barnyard smells after summer rain, "have you been - for the last thirty years?"

Impassive stare dropped at the last two words, the Doctor flinches back a half step. "Thirty _years?_" he squeaks. "I've been right where _you_ left me, Captain, for almost two days, figuring out how to get to the right spot in your timeline. _Catch me if you can?_ What did you think was going to happen, it's not like you actually leave behind a trail of breadcrumbs."

Provisionally giving up the anger in favour of relief at being found, Jack sits up and coughs again. "That is _vile_. I never realised how disgusting ponds could be. Ugh. I thought - I mean, you're a Time Lord. I thought you'd just… follow my timeline." He unwinds a weed from his arm, and wonders why he would have _expected_ the Doctor to be there. His vortex manipulator is gone from his wrist, only the cuffs he has never been willing to remove remaining, and _that_ \- that seems a much more sensible thing to have expected.

With something resembling a bark of laughter, the Doctor says, "That's not how it works with you. The sheer scale involved…" Jack looks back up at him and frowns; he looks awful, drawn tight and sharply focused, pale and tense. Two days, he said, which Jack remembers now is far more than he can bear when he has any choice in the matter.

Wiping off his hand the best he can - all his fingers again, that will be nice - he holds it up to the Doctor, who grabs it serpent swift. "Hey," Jack says gently, tugging to pull his long-misplaced lover down to sit. "It's alright now. I'm sorry. I thought… we'd have a bit of a chase, see some sights, just get out a bit. I didn't intend… any of this."

Eyes closed, jaw set, the Doctor clings to his hand with a grip like a vise. "Your timeline," he says, after a little while, "it's like - a wire drawn through time, a monofilament, perfectly straight and absolutely eternal - frictionless, there's no way to, to _grasp_ it. Places are easy. People are - people have _events_, have interactions I can feel. But you, everything _else_ happens in reference to _you_."

Fairly certain he is curious for all the wrong reasons, Jack asks, "How did you find me, then?"

"Like feeling my way in pitch darkness. And trial and error." He grins briefly; Jack can't tell if he is avoiding answering, or if that is truly all the answer that would make sense to him. "The TARDIS refused to materialise inside herself this time, thank goodness."

"That sounds awful. I'm sorry, Doctor."

"Just don't do it again."

Jack shakes his head and kisses the Doctor's hand, but he knows better now than to make that promise. He climbs to his feet, pulls the Doctor up after him. "Come on, let's get out of here. I just need to grab a couple things - I've been ready to go since I got here."

Brows raised inquiringly, the Doctor follows him. "What do you need to get, then?" He seems to have no intention of letting go Jack's hand.

"I got us tickets to Hamilton."

-+-+-

Thirty years. The Doctor is willing to set aside most of his anger in light of the evidence that Jack has suffered for much, _much_ longer than he has - if less acutely. Life is a tearing horror anymore without Jack nearby to anchor him, to take his bearings from. It is clear Jack regrets his actions deeply, for both their sakes: the way he stays at the Doctor's side without complaint, touching or in easy reach; the way he submits to being tied to the bed so the Doctor dares to sleep, the first few weeks; the way he takes care of things, of the Doctor, as if to prove himself indispensable. Which he is, of course. He doesn’t ask about his vortex manipulator, which is just as well: minutes after the Doctor had removed it from him, it had vanished. To where, the Doctor could not say, although he has a new guess about the purpose of Jack’s visit to Ophicche.

Jack will run away again; it's only a matter of time. But the Doctor will find him every time. Jack will always die again, eventually. The tiniest of burrs on that infinite thread. He'll figure out the pattern soon enough, but in the meanwhile he will suffer; the Doctor has no intention of giving him that information for free. After all, it was only _most_ of the anger.

“I wonder, sometimes,” Jack says one day, the Doctor's head on his shoulder, his restless fingers temporarily calmed.

“Wonder what?”

“What else we might have been. My memories are fuzzy, in places, ever since I ran away. I remember thinking I had a lot more history with you than you had with me, yet.”

“It seems inevitable, really,” the Doctor says, meditatively. “After all, I am always still living my own timeline. The rest of the universe only experiences the parts that actually happen, and that's all there is to it. But you, Jack…” He kisses a fading bite mark on Jack's chest. “You're special. My eternal sun.”

“Things that were supposed to happen?”

The Doctor shakes his head, then shrugs. “Not _supposed to_, exactly. There’s a weight to things, you know, a likeliness; a path that Time - _prefers_, for lack of a better word. Perhaps we did something very unlikely, one day. I haven’t noticed any problems.” Jack is silent, brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown. “What?”

“I met someone on Good Enough - a historian, collecting stories of you. She’d met you briefly, when you were traveling with the Ponds I think. I kept running into holes in my memories… nevermind. Disorientating, but as long as - as long as there’s a reasonable explanation, right?” Which is an unusually disjointed comment from his eloquent Captain; the time out of the TARDIS must have let reality creep up on him. Who knows what he had remembered before, that now never happened. The Doctor stretches up to kiss him, for therapeutic distraction.

For a long time he does stay, close and stable and necessary, but the two of them were never made for such forced domesticity; it chafes at best, and at times very nearly flenses skin from body. But Jack won’t have the Doctor going out alone for fear of danger finding him, and the Doctor is trapped by promises and need. “Stay with me,” Jack whispers, the heat of his fingertips an unrefusable bribe, the submission he gives a chain around the Doctor's neck. _Stay_, he says, and _stay_, and _stay_, and never _go_; and even when he himself can't take it anymore, he never gives the Doctor an excuse. He only goes himself.

-+-+-+-


	11. Lost and bound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: explicit sex, violence, and death. This is where the snuff tag comes in. I honestly don't know how to classify the consent for this interaction. But also, they finally talk about it._

Jack wakes to an arm locked around his neck, a vast presence leaning heavily on his mind, a voice in his ear: “I found you, Captain.”

“I missed you,” he rasps, willing his heart to return to a normal speed, his muscles to relax from their first panicked spasm. He couldn't move even if his mind were fully his own; one arm about his neck, the other pinning his arms, the Doctor's legs between his holding his left leg down, stretching his right leg up and back, trapped at the limit of its range of motion.

Quietly vicious, the Doctor suggests, “Maybe don't run away, then.”

“Where’s the fun in tha-_aaah!_” The Doctor bites down _hard_ on the back of his shoulder and Jack tries to wake up more quickly, wonders if it broke skin, worries he may have finally pushed the Doctor too far. “_Fuck_, don't you think that's a bit much for a wake-up call?”

“Keep talking, Jack, tell me all about why,” he licks Jack's shoulder slowly - maybe he _is_ bleeding - “I shouldn't chain you up,” his arm still pressing hard enough to make Jack's breath come harsh and thready, “and throw away the key.” His lips tickle Jack's skin as he speaks, trailing up, and he bites down again before Jack can make proper sense of his words. Hissing in pain, Jack strains against him, bucking against the disturbingly effective immobilisation of his legs until he realises the Doctor is moaning, grinding his unmistakably hard cock against Jack's arse. This is familiar; this, Jack can work with.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you,” he taunts, tipping his head back to get a little more airway. Something about him; he always has to poke the bear. “To go back to that. Everything under your control, nothing to worry about, no fights, no promises, no _guilt_ -” The Doctor's teeth scrape over his ear, controlled but just a little too hard, and Jack shudders involuntarily. It was meant to make the Doctor back off, but he is still rubbing himself against Jack, only his trousers in the way of something Jack half wants, half is struggling to escape. He is playing with fire, and likely to get burned. “I can satisfy your every whim,” Jack whispers hoarsely, and the Doctor cuts his air down to a trickle.

“Then do so,” the Time Lord says, and pulls Jack's leg back further. Jack tries to yell, to scream, as he feels his hip slowly disconnect, but he has no breath to spend, no throat to use. As the world dims around the edges, the Doctor loosens the arm keeping Jack's torso pinned and he shifts, letting his left hip take more of the strain. The teeth are back, working at his injured shoulder. What whim is this - that Jack should suffer helplessly whatever the Doctor wishes to inflict? Gasping, Jack tries to surrender, tries to find some fraction of relief in giving in to the tearing pressure on his joints, but the Doctor just opens him up wider, stretching Jack over himself like a living rack. His arms are free now but he can't think to move them, all he can do is lean back, lean back, fall back into the predator devouring him alive, try to breathe -

A shrill attempt at a scream breaks from his throat as the Doctor's hand closes on his cock, hard and aching from asphyxiation this time, not arousal, it's _not_ arousal, it's _not_. No matter he sleeps naked in hope, dreams of these sure unyielding hands, longs for the thrill of resisting and _failing_, always failing if the Doctor wants him to fail. Jack moans, and the Doctor laughs as he bites the back of his neck. He loosens his arm a bit to let Jack breathe, caresses his cock with deliberate fingertips.

“Missed you,” Jack sighs after his vision clears, hating himself a little bit. “Love you.”

“I know,” the Doctor replies, a satisfied hum against bruised skin. “How long did it take to regret leaving this time? I know it wasn't long; you were waiting so patiently.” The motion of his thrusting against Jack's overextended hips is a deep, stabbing pain that Jack has to lean into, breathe into, because there's nothing to do but endure. He would snap his own ligaments if he tried to escape now. He tries not to think about what will happen when the Doctor comes, hips jerking forward back arching knees stretching wider - Sobbing, Jack presses against the arm at his throat until breathing is as painful as anything else, harsh and cutting, barely nourishing; but then the Doctor denies him that as well, and eases up again. “How long?” he demands.

“Three weeks,” Jack gasps. “Please -”

“And how long have you been here?”

“_Please_,” Jack sobs, and the Doctor relents, only a centimetre or two but it is enough that he can stop picturing it, can stop fighting the horrible urge to _tense_ against that moment. “Two years.”

Licking unhurriedly at Jack's neck, at the beat of the eternal pulse that so delights him, the Doctor hums thoughtfully. His thumb rasps over the head of Jack's cock in a slowly widening spiral, sending shuddering sparks through him like fireworks. “It could have been two hundred years. It might be, next time. What would that do to you, I wonder? Alone and desperately regretting.” Held fast, Jack can only moan as the Doctor's hand slides down over his cock, twisting and squeezing _just right_, in time with the pulse of pain and arousal from the slide of the Doctor's cock against his arse. “It's all the same to me. A day or two to find you. The only one you're making miserable here is yourself, and if you need to be miserable I think I can oblige.”

He thrusts a little harder and Jack whimpers in pain as something pops. “You could at least fuck me.”

“That would make you _less_ miserable, and I don't think that's what either of us want.”

It's getting harder to think, heavy fog blanketing Jack's mind, waves of pain crashing over him but he's anchored well and high by the unwavering skill of the Doctor's hand on his cock. Jack doesn't know what he wants anymore. “I'm good,” he gasps, “I'm very miserable, I'm downtrodden and despondent, I'm in a slough of despair, Doctor, if you keep this up I won't be able to walk, _please_ -”

Growling, the Doctor starts thrusting in earnest. “I don't want you to walk. I want you to _stay_ where I _put you_.”

Crying, sobs punctuated by tormented howls, Jack tries to channel the pain, tries to disconnect but he's trapped, pushed relentlessly toward a release that will break him, caught up in something much bigger than himself. The Doctor carries him like the sea, tossing and consuming him, bearing him inexorably toward the deadly goal of the rocky shore. “Won't kill me, at least,” he thinks, he says, nearly delirious; the Doctor tightens the arm against his throat.

“Will I not?” he growls, teeth pressed to Jack's neck. “_Will-I-not_ -”

The pain when Jack comes is intense. When the Doctor comes shortly after it's worse; vision flashing white, Jack screams as tendons snap, ligaments tear, things that aren't meant to move _do_ as his hips dislocate. He sucks in a shuddering breath, throat tight as a straw, and then in a popping, grinding cascade of new pain the Doctor breaks his neck.

-+-+-

The faceted geometry of the Doctor’s bedroom ceiling greets Jack when he gasps back to life. The TARDIS is welcoming but distressed; Jack is just relieved to be home. “Missed you, sweetheart,” he sighs happily, and then realises he can’t sit up. He is stretched out spread-eagle, tied down at wrists and ankles; the Doctor didn't bother with clothes this time. “Ah. You weren't joking.”

“If you miss us so much,” the Doctor says querulously from Jack's right, “why do you keep leaving?”

Jack considers his options. “I suppose,” he decides, after a moment, “I like the illusion of choice. But I see we're dispensing with that for now.”

The Doctor snorts. He is sprawled in the armchair in the corner; Jack can more-or-less see him, with his head craned around. “Let me know when you think of something that affords _me_ the illusion of choice.”

“I will do so,” Jack agrees politely. “What would you like me to do if I need the loo?” Fingers interlaced before his mouth, the Doctor scowls at him darkly and doesn't answer. “You have some time to decide,” Jack concedes after a few minutes of silence. Practical considerations not top of his mind right now, then; or maybe it's not a long-term situation. The Doctor stands and looks down at him for a moment, then turns and stalks out of the room. Jack resigns himself to staying where he's been put.

His vortex manipulator is gone again, as usual; Jack hopes the TARDIS has it hidden away somewhere. He has set it to blind jump into the vortex if it comes off his wrist without his consent and the TARDIS has picked it up again every time, so far. She always returns it to him; Jack suspects she is hoping he will finally succeed, one of these days. He won't. He doesn't want to. She sings reassurance to him, and he smiles. “That’s alright then, sweetheart, everything is fine. Well.” He laughs at her sceptical reminder of _tied down_. “Relatively fine. I’m not much bothered. Isn’t this how I usually end up back here? It’s good to be home. Tropical paradise just isn’t the same without you.” Fine place to spend a couple years, but he had told the Doctor the truth: three weeks was enough, and the next two years far too much. Eternity alone is too heavy a burden to be reminded of. The Doctor hadn’t been joking about locking Jack up; he might also not be joking about leaving him to wander alone for hundreds of years, next time. That prospect worries Jack far more than anything else here, including the potential new taste for snuff films starring himself.

It’s too risky; perhaps this game has run its course, and there shouldn’t be a next time. How he is to convince the Doctor he’s done running, he doesn’t know, especially since he knows better than to make promises like that. But for now, he’ll be good. He will wear his cuffs, and take his punishment, and do as the Doctor wishes - when it won’t put him in danger. Eventually, he will win his way back into the Doctor’s good graces; eventually, he will chase away the shadows from his eyes and they will laugh together again.

-+-+-

_ Eventually _ looks to be no time soon; when the Doctor returns he fastens Jack's cuffs together in front of him with a thick chain link, and _that_ looks like a long-term situation. Enough range of motion to do anything necessary, not nearly enough to let him think he is free. Still ultimately symbolic, but less so than usual. Jack sits up and tests out his reach as the Doctor frees his ankles, metal link squeaking softly against the fresh holes in his cuffs. “So -”

“Safe word,” the Doctor interrupts him; Jack stares.

“Safe words are for people who stop,” Jack says eventually, not sure how to soften that blow, not sure if he should.

“I _will_ stop,” the Doctor pledges, jaw clenched. “I swear to you, Jack… I don't know what to swear on.” He closes his eyes, and when he opens them he no longer looks detached but miserable, hurt and needy, and Jack swallows, suddenly overcome by guilt for his continual boundary pushing. “I need this, I need you to stay, I need to be… what you said, I need to be in control, for now. But _not_ like before. I won't let it be like before. On all my love for you, Jack, I swear I won't. Please, give me a safe word?”

Pulling his knees up, Jack circles them with his linked wrists and rocks back and forth, watching the Doctor. It has always seemed _safer_, oddly, not having a safe word with him. Stopping is one of the very few things Jack has never been able to quite trust him to do, and he prefers to know his limits. Then again, he has often thought he understood the Doctor's limits as well, and this latest retrieval suggests he is a bit off in his estimation there. The broken neck had surprised him, if briefly. He wets his lips cautiously. “I can't help but notice you ask for a safe word just after experimenting with snuff. It won't do me much good there.”

Looking a bit sick, the Doctor sits on the bed, looks down at his hands. “And hard limits. Safe word and hard limits. Please. I need… I need to do this without guilt, for once.”

“That… makes more sense than I was expecting, actually.” Jack shakes his head. “Why did you kill me?”

“I wanted… I needed… Why didn’t you fight me?”

“I _did_. What the hell does that have to do with it?”

The Doctor seems to fold even further into himself. “You didn’t try, Jack, I've seen you try. You let me, and all I wanted just then was to _win_. Unspoken rules and limits… aren’t working.”

“And you think… what? You think if I give you limits it will just… work?” What he wants makes sense; how he wants to achieve it seems questionable. “Doc, if I build you this box, if I make this space for you where the only limits are _my_ limits… you understand the whole thing goes up in flames if you break the box, right? You aren't known for staying in the boxes people build for you.”

With a pained laugh, the Doctor ducks his head. In profile Jack can't tell if it is hope or fear - or both, or something entirely different - that twists his features. “I need it,” he says, voice catching. “I need you to build me a box. Who else could. I won't… I'll…” He trails off. More quietly, he says, “I'll warn you before I break it.”

Maybe, maybe this will work. Jack could not have trusted a promise _never_ to break his limits, but this? Maybe. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “My limits are no lies, Doctor. If we're going to do this, be honest with me. It will take practice, you won't always get it right, but don't wait for me to call you on it. That's what I need. Can you?”

“But -” He is staring at Jack, eyes wide and afraid.

“It's not what you were hoping for, I know.” Jack smiles wryly. He suspects the Doctor had been hoping to outsource his self control, not be given free reign to have almost none. “You need to hurt me, you go ahead. If it's too much, some particular day, that's what safe words are for. You need to kill me, I'm ok with that. You're welcome to ask about specific things in advance, always. Don't forget to _communicate_, Doctor. But do it honestly, and end it honestly, and no guilt accrues.”

He watches the fear on the Doctor's face fade away into determination, and then, as he twists toward Jack, crawls up the bed toward him, into hunger. Pressing him slowly flat, the Doctor straddles his waist, pushes his arms above his head. “I can. I _will_. I will, Jack. Please, tell me your safe word.” His fingers trace the contours of Jack’s chest, brush his nipples, smooth short hairs down in long strokes to his belly.

“Cardiff,” Jack says, and feels the walls come down around them.

The Doctor kisses him, hard and heated. “Promise you’ll use it,” he says breathlessly, pulling away.

“I promise.”

“Promise again.” Lowering his head, he licks at Jack’s throat as he did earlier, but doesn’t bite. “Promise again, Jack.”

“You have to trust me, too, Doctor,” Jack murmurs, tilting his head back. “Maybe I don’t deserve a lot of trust right now, but in this, you have to trust me. I promise.” The Doctor bites down and Jack rides the pain, cries out and bucks up against his lover, movement gloriously unrestricted. What the Doctor can inflict, Jack can take, wants to take; Jack is the cure for what ails him, and right now, that’s all that matters.

-+-+-+-


	12. Redemption

The Doctor regrets the chain link the next day, when he realises he has yet again denied Jack the privilege of a shirt, but when he offers to take it off Jack shakes his head. “Do you need me to wear a shirt?”

“I don't care one way or another,” the Doctor says, uncertain why he might need such a thing.

“Then leave it, please. I can do anything you need me to do.” Freshly showered, hair still damp, Jack kneels next to the bed the Doctor has failed to pry himself out of yet. The desperation of yesterday is muted by the relief of having Jack back in residence, but he has run away too many times now for the Doctor to feel at all secure. It seems Jack realises that, because he looks painfully sincere as he says, “I won't run, I'm done with that, but I know you can't believe me right now. I’m sorry. You need something you can trust. Whatever that means to you, whatever I can do, please let me do it.”

The Doctor sits up, eyes him doubtfully. “If I did want to leave you tied up here?” Jack just raises his wrists, offering them to the Doctor; he swallows, suddenly nervous about what he has unleashed here. Or… leashed. Looping a finger through the link, he pulls Jack’s hands to his lap. “Jack…”

“I want this,” he says, eyes intent, catching the Doctor's hand in his searing grip. “Of every word I ever speak, let these be the ones you never doubt: _I want this_. Wherever it goes, whatever you need of me.”

Even so, he doubts. Clamping Jack’s hand in turn, the Doctor squeezes. “Are you sure? If I needed you to fight back?” Something gives with a sharp snap; Jack’s jaw clenches, his face going white.

“Do you?” His voice is only slightly strained.

“No.”

Another bone breaks, and Jack sucks a breath through his teeth. “Then tell me when you do.”

He moans as the Doctor lets go his hand; he shifts his grip to Jack’s jaw, thumb digging in painfully. “If I want you to shut up and look pretty?” Jack just looks up at him, smile playing about his white-lined lips. “You are rather good at that,” the Doctor concedes. “I am not, at the moment, interested in silence. Too much of that, when you’re gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack says again. “I’ve had far too much of it as well.”

“You don't spend all that time alone,” the Doctor scoffs, letting him go. Jack mocks him with his freedom, stepping out the door to anywhere he likes, living as he wishes for years, without even having to _care_, because sooner or later, the Doctor will come for him.

Jack shakes his head, the Doctor's own weariness and wanting echoed in those beautiful blue eyes. “Sometimes I do.” Anger and resentment subsiding as quickly as they had surged, the Doctor looks away, guilty again. Jack reaches up to touch his cheek gently, broken hand trailing along behind. “No guilt. Remember? We're there, Doctor, in that safe space, we're there until you tell me we're done. I want this.”

Safe. It's the oddest safety he has ever possessed, and the most humbling. All he has to do… is question every word out of his mouth. Simple. Easy. “You want me to break you?”

“If that's what you need. Or want, or will make you feel better. Doctor.” He waits until the Doctor looks back at him. “What will make you feel better?”

“I don't know.”

Jack snorts. “Try again. I told you it would take practice.”

“I don't know! I don't. I want. I. Look, Jack…” This is no sort of submission he is familiar with. He has made yet another promise he's to be held to, and he should have known better, shouldn't he? At least this one has a termination clause. “I don't -”

“Consider what you're about to say very carefully,” Jack advises, watching him shrewdly. “We're not here lightly. Don't burn it all down because you've just realised I meant it.”

Shutting out the view of his Captain's expectant, upturned face, the Doctor takes a breath, and another. “I want to brush my teeth,” he says finally, unsure if such a prosaic desire counts. “I want you to stay here.” He opens his eyes to see Jack sitting back on his heels, looking perfectly content to remain there for the life of the universe if the Doctor should desire it.

“Thank you,” Jack breathes, and it is strangely reassuring to find he had been afraid as well. “I will.”

Alone with Jack in the next room is so different from the emptiness that fills the TARDIS when he is gone that he wants to scream at being forced to _know_ the difference. Futilely the Doctor wishes to forget, wishes to not care, wishes to prefer being set adrift on time’s tides, but he can’t; that steady blazing centre is too much a part of his world now. He wishes Jack wouldn’t go, as well, although certainly he is staying for now; he wishes, uncomfortably, that the time away hurt Jack like it hurts him. Turning away from his reflection in the glass, the Doctor turns this wish over in his mind. Maybe this one, he can have.

Jack seems to have moved not a muscle when the Doctor returns, eyes half-lidded, hands resting on his thighs, simply waiting. The Doctor watches him silently for a moment, then picks up the slim cane lying on the bed with a thought of surprised thanks to the TARDIS. She feels withdrawn but not upset, and her helpfulness is an immensely reassuring sign that Jack is truly willing. Strong and flexible, the cane makes a satisfying _thump_ when he brings it down against the bed; Jack jumps, attention returned to the here and now. He turns his face up to the Doctor like a flower to the sun, open and receptive, and the Doctor is shocked at the raw desire in his eyes. “Please,” he says. “Tell me.”

The Doctor almost can’t say it. “I want,” he swallows, throat gone tight. “I want you to tell me how much you regret leaving.” He pauses to make sure it’s still true, but it is, and Jack wants all of his truth. “I want you to hurt like you hurt me.”

-+-+-

Some days it’s blood and tears and screams the Doctor wants, some days mindless pleas; some days he wants silence, by Jack’s will or by his death or simply by leaving for as long as the Doctor can bear to be away. Some days he begs for reassurance that he isn’t going too far, that Jack doesn’t hate him, that he won’t leave; and Jack gives it. If Jack could think of anything more to give, he would. But although the Doctor has pursued a wild variety of experiments, exhausted his own imagination and Jack's as well, he has not yet matched the efficient brutality of the day he came to retrieve Jack. Something is missing, some need is still going unmet although he has Jack, willing and entire, at his mercy. He pushes them both to the edge, over and over again, and then seems to look over it, and step back.

“Why are you doing this, Jack?” the Doctor asks softly one day, as he pulls Jack up from where he rests. Crumpled rather awkwardly, it may be said, but resting all the same. Getting his legs under him is a painful process, moving anything is painful with the beating he’s just taken, but still it feels incomplete again. He is beginning to long for catharsis.

“You wanted me to,” Jack mumbles. “I don’t know.”

“Is there anything you won’t do for me?”

Jack barks a laugh. If he was expecting that to require thought, he was wrong. “No.”

The Doctor takes him to bed, gently cleans away the blood, sits by him as the endorphins dissipate and the pain takes over, that awkward in-between before he heals sufficiently to function again. Strokes his hair and reads to him, but the words wash over him in waves of static, shivery and soothing by turns. His wrists are still attached to each other, are always so, arms raised above his head as he lays on his belly, forehead pressed to cuff, arm pressed to the Doctor. The cold tickle or burning itch of nerves healing makes him twitch. He doesn’t know how long he lies there, but he is surprised that the Doctor is still there when the worst of it is over. “‘m fine,” he says, muffled by the mattress.

“You always say that. I don't think you're always telling the truth.” Hand laying still on Jack's shoulder, he pauses, then adds in a whisper, “I think I should like if there were a limit.” He doesn’t say any more, and leaves the bedroom once Jack is healed to his satisfaction.

Jack has never used his safe word. He hasn't felt it necessary, but perhaps there is more to account for here than his own comfort. _Promise you’ll use it_, the Doctor had said; not _if you need it_, just use it. Jack had, at the time, edited it in his mind to the more sensible statement, but the Doctor may have meant exactly what he said; perhaps he needs a more constrained box. Perhaps what the Doctor is pursuing so desperately is simply proof that he _can_ stop, and Jack… has never asked him to.

Except. Except for those times in the dim darkness of Jack's memory. Those sins that still haunt the Doctor, that don't let Jack trust fully now (_roll over, Captain - no. I'm not your dog - but he didn't stop, he never stopped_). To test, and fail - in full knowledge and hope - he can't imagine where that would leave them.

Only that it might not be worse than their current trajectory.

Not for the first time, Jack begins to consider the intersection of abuse and consent. Is it abuse, if he put his neck in the noose himself? Is it consent, if he was already restrained when he gave it? He thinks, most of the time, the answer to both is yes; at least for them, for now. But the power dynamics between them are so tangled he is never quite sure.

He has a great deal of time in which to consider it. The Doctor disappears into the depths of the TARDIS, where there is no way to find him if he doesn't wish to be found, and Jack is left to his own devices again. Having given his parole there is nowhere for him to go; far too easy to get into trouble outside the TARDIS with his hands cuffed together in any case. Charitably he supposes the most likely result is that someone would cut them off him, but - feeling violated by the thought of it, he shudders in dismay and gets back up to pace around the console room again.

It's hard not to worry. Not that the TARDIS would allow any harm to the Doctor; she shocks him for the thought and he jumps, pats the console apologetically. In fact she hasn't been very happy with him lately either. She hasn't been happy in general, with the Doctor sunk into this strange dark mood, but the usual care with which she accommodates Jack's human frailties has been absent. He will survive, of course; he doesn’t worry about himself. The Doctor, on the other hand, has proved on more than one occasion that he can stay away from Jack for so long that he becomes nearly catatonic, lost in the confused eddies of his wrecked time sense, and Jack has had to go retrieve him. So he waits, and worries, and considers limits.

Just shy of two days after he left, the Doctor returns, dropping down silently beside him as he reads in the library. He takes Jack’s book, marks the page, and sets it aside, pulls Jack’s arms around him and leans against his chest.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Jack asks, after the Doctor begins to relax. He shakes his head, doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry.”

After a few more minutes the Doctor extracts himself and sits back. “Go to bed, please, Jack,” he says. “I’ll be along.”

Without any idea what the Doctor has in mind, Jack goes; when the Doctor arrives he is sitting naked on the bed, duvet pulled back but not under it. He had considered kneeling beside the bed, but that seemed on second thought like a disingenuous interpretation of _go to bed_, so he didn’t. He hasn’t chosen wrongly, in any case; the Doctor smiles at him and waves at the bed. “Won’t be a moment,” he says, and steps into the bathroom. Jack lies down to wait.

When the Doctor slips in next to him he is naked as well, but instead of anything Jack is expecting he nudges Jack gently to his side facing away, slips an arm under his head, and pulls him close. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says quietly, cold hand wandering up and down Jack’s torso absently. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to do. I think it started out as an attempt to redress some of… what I did to you, back at the beginning. Reclaim it, or… rewrite it maybe. To prove it hadn’t been so bad, if we as fully consenting, loving people could do those things. But that’s not true, is it.”

It’s not, but Jack had been willing to try; willing to make his body an instrument of redemption for the Doctor, a slate wiping clean his sins each day. “I wanted it to be true,” Jack says, closing his eyes, despairing of finding anything more within himself to give. “I wish I could do that for you.”

The Doctor nuzzles into his hair, kisses his neck. “How can you love me so, after all I’ve done to you?” It’s only half rhetorical, for all Jack has never succeeded in making him understand any other time he has asked. He is looking for reassurance of a different sort than Jack had been prepared to give, and it’s all wrong now; his hand is moving more purposefully, sliding up to caress Jack’s throat, slowly down tracing muscles and ribs, and he is moving gently against Jack’s backside. There is no pain, and Jack hardly knows what to do without pain, anymore. Something inside is fracturing. He bites down hard on a cuff, and tries to hold it in. “You, though, it’s impossible not to love you.” The Doctor's voice is tender, his kisses a gentle rain against Jack’s shoulders, wearing him away. “Although you run away sometimes, and have a terrible sense of humor.”

His hand has reached Jack’s knee, and starts back up again, and Jack trembles. “You’ve given me everything, Jack, everything you have, everything you are. And I’ve promised not to lie.” He pauses, which is terrifying; his hand skims over Jack’s hip again. “I don’t know what I need. Maybe you can’t give it to me.” Without the cuff in the way Jack would have sobbed; instead he bites harder, ignoring the tears spilling from his eyes. Of all the things to finally push him too far, the one thing he _asked_ for -! He doesn’t want to hear this truth. “Maybe it can’t be had. I don’t know. But Jack, this is a living hell I've trapped us in, and that’s the truth. I think -”

He reaches for Jack’s cuffs, and that’s too much, too much that he should take away everything all at once, it needs to stop, stop _now, stop_. Jack pries his jaws open and the Doctor’s hands are on his cuffs as he forces out, fear eating him empty but with no other choice at all, “Cardiff. Cardiff!” He tears his hands away, rolls over onto them to protect them. “Stop, please, stop.”

-+-+-+-


	13. Knives all the way down

Like a rusted engine finally succumbing to disrepair everything seems to grind to a halt; his hands, his thoughts, Jack turning away in slow motion, the air around them solidifying in its stillness. Somehow in trying to mend things he has hurt Jack worse than ever, beyond bearing, pushed him to risk using that safe word he was so reluctant to give. Anything other than stopping here would be unforgivable; but stopping _what?_

To be certain, the Doctor stops everything, lies still as a statue, the only motion left the beating of his hearts, the only sound Jack's broken sobs. He longs desperately to offer comfort, but it is not his place in this moment. He tries instead to determine where he went wrong; how, after everything he has done, it was his attempt at finally wresting a truth from this awful mess that finally went too far. He had thought to free Jack's wrists, end this arrangement -

He had reached for Jack's cuffs, and what was he to think, after that speech? "Jack," the Doctor whispers, heart in his throat. Face buried in the mattress, Jack's sobs have given way to shuddering breaths. "I'm sorry, I -"

"Don't," Jack begs, throat sounding painfully hoarse. He rolls back, presses himself against the Doctor's chest, cuffed wrists tucked between them safe and secure.

Embracing him tentatively, the Doctor kisses his forehead. “I won’t take your cuffs, Jack,” he promises. "I never will, not until you ask me to. I promise, Jack." Jack lays silent against him, unmoving, and the Doctor holds him until he falls asleep, undreaming under the Doctor's guard.

What use are promises, between them? But they can't seem to resist making them, and breaking them, over and over and over again.

-+-+-

When Jack wakes he checks for his cuffs; then he breathes.

Against all his fears, in redemption of all his hopes, the Doctor had stopped. It wasn't the dramatic test the Time Lord had imagined, maybe, but test it was nonetheless; and in his need the Doctor had not failed him, although Jack could not help but fail the Doctor in his. If he cannot be what the Doctor needs, what point _being?_ If he had a choice - but he never has. He had chosen once, and had that choice revoked, never to come again.

"Jack," the Doctor whispers, and touches the wet track of a tear that fell to the pillow. "I want to free you."

His throat goes tight again. Jack opens his eyes to find his lover watching him from across the pillow, pain and regret etched into his face, hazel eyes intent. "I don't want to be freed."

"Just this." The Doctor moves his finger from Jack's cheek to the chain link holding his cuffs together. "Just this part, Jack. Be mine still, but let me be yours, as well. I don't want to control you anymore. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I'm so sorry, Jack."

They can't help hurting each other, can they? But that isn't what he means. "No guilt, Doctor. You did what you needed to do, and you stopped when I needed you to stop, and all of it was true." No matter the truth hurts more than any lie. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

"I don't think that's… entirely true, but I appreciate your saying so again." The Doctor sighs and rolls to his back. "While we're still here, I suppose I might as well… did you ever figure out how I found you, when you ran away?"

"Trial and error, I thought you said."

He shakes his head, pushes aside a lock of hair that falls into his eyes. "No - well, yes, I did say, and there was a bit of that the first time. But no. I can find your deaths, Jack. I just skip ahead to the next one. It's always been fairly soon after you die that I show up."

"Not last time," Jack points out, confused.

"No," the Doctor say quietly. "Not last time. Last time I got there slightly before."

"But _you_ killed me. How could you -" Jack feels a distinct sinking sensation in his midsection as he considers the implications. "Predestination paradox. Easy enough to find a death when you can just put one in wherever you like. You came intending to kill me?"

"Yes." He doesn't look at Jack.

"That's a bit much, even for you. Got that out of your system?"

"I don't _know_," the Time Lord says wretchedly. "The things I would do to get you back, Jack… I don't know where it ends. I wouldn't stop until I did, you know, I never would. I never could. Unto madness, unto death, I could never stop trying to get you back."

And it was Jack's heart's desire, gone rotten to the core, that led them to this. This isn't the kind of need Jack had hoped to be the fulfillment of; this isn't the kind of need that can be fulfilled. The Doctor needs him like he needs air, never an end to it, and every time Jack goes he puts his lover's life in danger. "Why did you tell me that? You liked having that over me, that I could never find you, never call you."

"I don't want to have anything over you. Especially not that. I wish I had never thought to try. Please, Jack."

"Yes," Jack says softly, offering his wrists. "But just this part, Doctor. We'll go together next time, if you want."

"I want," the Doctor breathes; his eyes are dark and hungry when he turns to look at Jack, and his fingers fumble impatiently. Sitting up, he flings the link across the room with unexpected violence. "Get rid of that," he says, presumably to the TARDIS as he is pressing himself to Jack's chest. "Please."

Jack tightens his arms, rocks the Doctor against him gently. He can try to steer them to less dangerous locales, and he can protect the Doctor whilst they are there, but keeping him prisoner is destroying them both. Odd realisation to have when Jack is the one spending so much time chained up. His chains come and go; the Doctor's have never loosened.

Fingernails rake down his back and Jack realises _gentle_ is the last thing on the Doctor's mind. "Be yourself," the Doctor orders, forcing a leg between Jack's. "Be my Captain. I’ve no hold over you. Fight back, damn you!"

Brows raised in surprise, Jack nonetheless pushes the Doctor to his back, pins his arms as he swings a leg over. "I've been myself," he points out calmly, as the Doctor claws at his arms. "I'd have fought back any day you liked."

"Fight back when _you_ like!"

"I'm afraid you've made a mistake, then," Jack says, holding the Doctor down as he bucks under him, as his feet kick against the mattress. His teeth are bared, breath ragged and uneven, but it's not from effort; he could push Jack off if he wanted to. "You freed me too soon. I don't want to fight back today."

The Doctor makes a wild, wounded noise and looks away, closes his eyes; then he pushes hard at Jack's elbows. Startled, Jack collapses down onto his chest and the Doctor lies still beneath him.

"It's alright," Jack says, even though it isn't. "Hey. It's alright." He pets the Doctor's hair, turns his face up and kisses him gently, holds him tight as the tears come, and the gutwrenching sobs, and the painful breaths after; and finally as the calm descends over them. "I'm sorry I can't be what you need."

Sounding mere moments from the welcome escape of sleep, the Doctor says, "No one could be everything I need, Jack. You're the next best thing." It's not forgiveness, exactly, and it's certainly not everything Jack had hoped, once upon a time long ago, but it is approaching acceptance; and maybe that's what they both need.

"I am your dog," Jack whispers, not sure whether he hopes the Doctor is awake or asleep. "I'll guard you for eternity." The Doctor makes no response, breaths slow and even against Jack's shoulder, and Jack finds himself relieved; he doesn't want to speak of death. He won't do so again.

They tumble down the years together, striking sparks, rubbing off each other's sharp edges - but they are the sort of people who are all sharp edges, knives all the way down. They wear each other away.

-+-+-

He does grow old, slowly but surely. Jack doesn't notice at all, until one day they are running to stop another idiot from pressing a button that shouldn't exist in the first place and the Doctor falls behind, and never catches up. They argue more after that. Jack is terrified by the reminder of the Doctor's mortality; keeps him close, watches obsessively for any visible indications of age. But they come on too slowly to see. The Doctor, for his part, is disgusted by Jack's fussing, horrified by the prospect of being confined to the TARDIS again, preserved in perpetuity like a museum specimen.

"You're meant to live a long time," Jack says angrily. "Not throw your life away on some stupid stunt. If running isn't your thing anymore, _stop doing it_. There's plenty to do in the universe that doesn't involve running! We'll just pick it back up next time you're young and spry."

At least he didn't say _pretty_ \- next time indeed! "There is no next time, Jack -" but even as the words leave his mouth his mind screams in helpless protest, trying to recall the breath, the vibrations, the _moment_ -

Jack's face goes blank in the shock of someone just shot. "What?" he breathes, clearly willing the Doctor to take it back, say it was a joke, _anything;_ but lying about this would be unforgivable. The Doctor presses his lips together and Jack swallows harshly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His eyes are haunted, all the close calls they’ve had suddenly gaining far greater significance.

“You would have been even more insufferable,” the Doctor grumbles, unhappily contemplating the coming years. Briefly he considers attempting to erase Jack’s memory, but he suspects Jack has worked out various resistances to that by now and his trust is the only freedom the Doctor has left. “This is a misery, Jack, being kept _safe_. Eventually I won’t be able to keep up with you and then you won’t let me out at all, and what kind of life is that? It’s not any kind. You had the right of it at the start. This is destroying me.”

Jack seems to fold in on himself as the Doctor speaks, to shut down until only his eyes are alive, startling and bright over his drawn up knees. “You promised,” he says, quietly.

The Doctor looks away. “I’ve kept that promise. Every day I’m here with you, every time we don’t go somewhere, every time it’s too dangerous, I am keeping that promise that I never should have made, and you never should have accepted. This is not how we heal, Jack, we heal by _living_. This isn’t living.” Feeling better about this angle of attack - less blaming, more moving forward - he turns back to look at Jack, and his words turn to ashes in his mouth. That terrible million-mile stare has taken over Jack’s face, the one he gets when he thinks too much about his own future. He is breathing carefully, deliberately.

“And when you’ve done your healing,” he says, between breaths, “and your living, after that. Then. Forever.” His eyes focus on the Doctor’s face again, and the terror in them is enough to drive anyone mad; the Doctor cannot bear it, and he wonders that Jack can even pretend, most days. “Alone,” he finishes wretchedly, and closes his eyes as the Doctor gathers him into his arms. It is no help, no comfort, just two desperate people clinging together as the universe goes on in all its uncaring immensity.

-+-+-+-


	14. Forever and ever

For days Jack struggles to regain control over himself, to contain the fear that the Doctor let loose. The Doctor, for his part, does his best to look perfectly healthy, and does not complain; he tinkers, and reads, and discovers that although he is rubbish at cricket now it’s still great fun, and also that determining when to stop knitting on a hat can be a bit hit-or-miss. More miss than hit. He unravels it as he goes in search of Jack; he needs checking up on every so often. He finds him in the kitchen, drinking.

“Where did you get that?” the Doctor exclaims, startled.

Jack waves a hand vaguely. “Over there. ‘Sgood. Have some.” He pushes the bottle toward the Doctor. “Burns going down, but it’s a delight coming back up. The future is brilliant.”

Several things are wrong with this, the Doctor thinks, starting with the TARDIS providing intoxicating beverages at all. “You don’t drink,” he tries.

“Terrible habit,” Jack agrees, nodding emphatically. “Only when I’m alone.”

Well. Maybe he did spend a little too long on that hat. “We didn’t have anything _to_ drink, last I knew.”

Jack sighs, and drains his glass. The Doctor quickly steps forward to take the bottle before he can pour any more. “Wasn’t what I wanted, anyway. I went to the infirmary first, but there was nothing there. _Someone_,” he looks significantly at the ceiling, “has _opinions_. Give me that, I’m not drunk enough.”

“Shan’t. It won’t help, Jack.”

“Nothing will help. Nothing, never, forever and ever and ever…” If this is _not drunk enough_ he must have been hoping to pass out, or worse. As his head slowly falls toward the table, the Doctor wonders if it is time for more drastic measures. When Jack falls apart he needs someone to put him back together, and although the Doctor is not feeling particularly put together himself at the moment, he can probably manage for a while. Setting the bottle on the counter behind him with a silent request to the TARDIS to dispose of it, the Doctor takes a deep breath. It’s worth a try. Jack can tell him to go to hell in the morning, if he likes.

“Captain,” the Doctor says firmly, and Jack’s head jerks. “I won’t have this. Stand up.”

“Go ‘way. You’re my downfall, you’re my muse,” he mumbles in a sing-song. “My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues…” Twisting his arm behind his back, the Doctor forces him up. “Ow! Fuck. Didn’t realise this was that sort of place…” He trails off as the Doctor captures his other arm as well and steers him out of the kitchen. When they reach the bedroom he laughs. “That’s more like it -”

Holding his wrists together in one hand, the Doctor grabs Jack’s hair and pulls his head back. “I won’t have it, Captain. You may speak again when you have something sensible to say.” He pushes Jack forward again but he sinks to his knees before they reach the bed although it must be painful with the Doctor holding his arms. He kneels there silently, bent forward, fine tremors shaking him; the Doctor is not sure what to do. When he sets Jack’s arms against his back and lets go, Jack holds his hands together himself and doesn’t move; when the Doctor bends down to try to see his face he doesn’t look up. “Jack. Look at me, Jack.”

He looks up but his eyes are unfocused and luminous, so clear and deep they almost look vacant; like flipping a switch he has fallen away to that place of no thought, no pain. The Doctor breathes a sigh of relief that it took so little to get him there. Light on orders and heavy on praise this time, and he’ll see where it gets them in the morning. “Much better,” he says softly, reaching to cup Jack’s cheek, brush fingers through his hair. “That's right, Captain, mine now, mine always.” Jack sighs and leans into his hand; the Doctor kisses his forehead. “What a delight you are. Come with me.”

He makes the shower hotter than he prefers, so that it feels warm to Jack, and lets himself be cared for because it pleases them both. Jack hums softly as he washes the Doctor’s hair and presses close against his backside; if only he had not got himself drunk. If only the Doctor had not left him alone too long. After he rinses his hair, he pulls Jack close, strokes his back slowly. “This is what I want today, Captain, I want to enjoy you for hours, soft and slow.” Jack whimpers, face pressed to his neck, and the Doctor smiles sadly. He has to set a task, some sort of goal for Jack, but after the last few days of mental disarray and, he suspects, no sleep, Jack won’t last long. “Trust me, Jack. There is nothing so beautiful as your trust. I’ll take care of you.”

He takes Jack to bed and presses him down, covering him with blankets and his own body, kisses him languorously. _Nowhere I’d rather be_, he whispers, and _mine_, and _beloved_, and when Jack is limp beneath him, breaths deep and steady, no longer bothering to try to open his eyes, the Doctor slips an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. “Sleep, Captain, I want you to sleep now, I want to feel you here next to me, sleeping calm in my arms, I want to feel your breath warm on my skin, in… and out… in… out…” He murmurs reassurances until Jack falls asleep, so he won’t for a moment think he is failing the Doctor’s desires for him. Then he lies awake, staring hopelessly into the darkness, considering a last, desperate possibility he has never before allowed himself to acknowledge in Jack’s presence.

-+-+-

Jack wakes, which, on consideration, seems acceptable. He wakes slowly, with no urgency beyond a full bladder, and he wakes with his nose pressed to the Doctor’s shoulder when he has felt adrift for days, so he does not move.

“Jack.” The barest whisper. Jack ignores it. “I know you’re awake, Jack.” But he can’t really, or he wouldn’t be keeping to that whisper. “Do you have a headache?” Jack presses his nose a little harder against the Doctor’s shoulder, which he seems to take as a _no;_ which, in fact, it was, so bugger this telepathy thing. “Good. Yes, terrible bother I’m sure.” He sounds amused, and slightly louder, but he kisses Jack’s forehead so everything is alright. “Go use the toilet, and drink some water, and do anything else that will help you feel good or comfortable,” he says, and as Jack’s heartrate jumps at the thought of leaving him, tightens his arm around Jack’s shoulders. “And then _come back_ here, Captain, come right back. I’m not sending you away, I’m taking care of you.”

Jack sighs, and tilts his head up hoping for a kiss, which he gets; then he goes to do as the Doctor bid him. Not sure how he ended up asleep on the Doctor’s shoulder, neither is he particularly bothered by the question; clearly the Doctor has it handled.

When he slips back into bed the Doctor welcomes him with another kiss and Jack moans quietly. “Jack,” the Doctor says, pulling away; Jack holds his breath. “I’m not upset with you, Captain, don’t…. Just listen, for a moment. I’ve mishandled this, and it’s not your fault.” He smiles at Jack and pets his hair reassuringly. “It’s not your fault at all, you’ve done everything I asked brilliantly. Nevermind. Everything I’ve asked and more, Jack, you’re a wonder…” Propping himself up on his elbow, he leans down to kiss Jack’s forehead, the corner of his eye. Jack watches silently, basking in the loving attention. “I’m going to take care of you, as long as you need. I want you to let me know, right away, if there is something you need, but if not you may leave it all in my hands, Jack, all of it -”

Greatly daring, Jack reaches up, traces his lips with a fingertip. The Doctor falls silent, brow furrowing under wisps of bed-mussed hair, expression unreadable but with something pained flickering in his eyes. Kissing Jack's finger, he nods, and then his cool breath washes over Jack's face, his nose bumping gently, and like a moon slipping slowly to the horizon his tongue touches Jack's lips. Jack closes his eyes, opens his mouth, and lives a lifetime buoyed on an expanse of starlight, where time cannot wound him.

-+-+-

A far cry from telling him to go to hell in the morning, certainly. At first the Doctor worries that Jack will wander off and find some way to hurt himself whilst the Doctor sleeps, his impaired state leading him into mischance, but he follows the Doctor's every request. _Stay with me_, he says, _I sleep better with you here_, and Jack never strays.

Other problems are harder: at no point can he regard Jack as having given consent for any of this. Yet he has also promised to take care of Jack, to take on his every need, and he needs touch when he is in this place, needs to feel wanted. At first the Doctor tries to content him with kisses and petting, but the more the Doctor tries to avoid sex, the more Jack seems to believe he is at fault. He tries ever harder to satisfy ever more stringent imaginary requirements, silent and sad, until the Doctor can't bear it anymore. If only they could do this right, and easy, just for once; but he can settle for kind and caring this time, and beg forgiveness later if he needs to. It is worth it, to see the end of the distress that Jack could not hide from him.

They have come so far together, done things no one ought, but it all comes back to this in the end: Jack’s life in his hands, and his soul in return.

Every step has followed from the last, every decision born of their long history together, and now he has one more choice to make: let time run out for his soul, and leave Jack's life to the ravages of time; or take a chance to consign them both to oblivion. He can't make it alone.

-+-+-

One day, Jack finds himself mildly confused. Life has been going along, he thinks, in that way it has of doing so; but he can't think quite what way that is. Yesterday is a blur like all the other yesterdays, although if he thinks back far enough - nevermind. In bed with the Doctor tucked up against his chest, Jack’s nose in his hair, hand pressed between his hearts, nothing needs doing, or changing, or thinking about.

That fantasy shatters when the Doctor takes a shuddering breath. “Doctor? What's wrong?” Unintentionally it comes out as a whisper; Jack wonders what is wrong with his throat. The Doctor freezes for a moment, tense and rigid, then turns quickly in Jack's arms.

“Jack? Are you -” Jack recoils at the look on his face, fear and desperate yearning in eyes tired past endurance. He looks terrible, ground down and broken; he shudders and Jack does not know why.

“What happened?” Jack's voice cracks. “What's wrong, did someone hurt you? Did _I_ hurt you?” he adds, horrified, the potentials of his lack of memory hitting him suddenly.

With a sob of relief the Doctor wraps his arm around Jack and holds on tight. “Not you, Jack, never you, never you. You've been… ill, for such a long time… Welcome back, love -”

He must be in a bad way, Jack thinks, startled; he is trembling like a leaf now, his thin body pressed close along the length of Jack's, legs tangled together. “I'm sorry,” Jack says, and the Doctor lets out a laugh that sounds like another sob. “Well I'm sorry it's been so hard for you, in any case, I'm sorry to be so much trouble. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“Just talk to me,” the Doctor mumbles into his chest. “I want to hear your voice, that's all I need.” So, without any idea what to talk about, Jack talks, hand slowly rubbing up and down the Doctor's back. Incrementally the trembling ceases, the tense distress ebbs away, until he lies still and silent, a cool weight in Jack's arms. Wondering if he has fallen asleep, Jack kisses his head gently and the Doctor's arm tightens around him again.

“Sorry,” Jack says softly. “I thought you might be asleep. I can keep talking.”

“Whatever you want.” He sounds too tired for Jack to take that in a very broad sense; it seems more like a plea simply to not have to decide. Something has been very, very wrong around here, and that something has been _Jack_, and why can't he _remember_ -? He will ask, but later.

Rocking the Doctor against him, Jack kisses his head again; the only part he can reach, with him burrowed in like this. “You need some sleep. There's nothing I need to go do right now, is there? Something dangerous I can't remember?” He would have said, no matter how tired he was, but all the same Jack feels better asking. The Doctor shakes his head and traps Jack's right leg more firmly between his own, a very clear request: _don't go_. “Alright. Sleep, then, and we'll fix it all in the morning.” The dark little laugh this gets from the Doctor makes Jack a bit sick, but what else can he do? He hums quietly, voice too questionable for singing, until the Doctor falls asleep, and then lies awake, wondering, trying to remember, chasing after something he’s trying to forget.

-+-+-+-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The line Jack mumbles is from John Legend's All of Me. Yeah, hundreds of years in the future, whatever. It goes so well._


	15. There will be stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Thank you for coming along for the ride. As dark as this story is, I'm proud of it. I wrote the very last line of this story first, shortly after I finished Crucible, and once it was written down it wouldn't let me go._   
  
_CW: discussion of suicide, character death._

Looking only slightly better than the day before, the Doctor stands at the console with none of the energy of long ago. His hair is wispy and mussed, his shirt wrinkled; his face is lined, eyes darkened by shadows that look permanent. He looks _old_.

Jack tries desperately to unthink that thought.

"Where are we going today, love?" he asks, hopping down the stairs as if he might lend the Doctor a bit of youth by proximity. Instead it only makes the contrast worse when the Doctor turns to him with a smile pasted on over weary gravitas.

"The Eye of Orion."

"We've been there," Jack points out. They rarely do repeats.

"I like it." Jack shrugs, pulls on a jumper, and, after the _thud_ of materialisation, follows the Doctor out the door.

For a very long period of time, the Eye of Orion is a very peaceful place. Near enough to an eternity, if one is a time traveler. The wind blows cool as it always does, breaking over the hills like the sea, ebbing and flowing and playing amongst the stone walls of old ruins, carrying the smells of other hills, other valleys. The Doctor stands a little way down the slope, looking out over gently swaying greenery; the ends of the very long white scarf he found somewhere and took a shine to wave about his knees. Jack is wearing nothing dramatic at all, today. He wants to feel the world.

When the Doctor reaches for his hand, he gives it, and stands next to him, waiting.

“I broke you again,” he says. “Do you remember?”

It’s no good wishing for things that aren’t so, but still… Jack wishes for things that aren’t so. “Yes,” he admits, holding tight. He had eventually dredged it up from memory during the night, then laid awake slowly suffocating under the creeping horror of eternity.

“Are you recovered, more or less, right now? Are you - can I -” He breaks off uncertainly. “I’ve something else to tell you.”

Jack laughs, but he probably shouldn’t have tried. “I’m fine. Is it worse? You’re,” he swallows, imagination suddenly providing awful possibilities, “you’re not dying today. Don’t tell me, if that’s it. No - no, don’t -” It must be worse, mustn’t it? Or he wouldn’t be so worried. “Do tell me, whatever it is, don’t lie -”

“Captain!” Jack falls silent, heart racing, as the Doctor cups his cheek with a cool hand, pulls Jack’s forehead to his. “Please calm down.”

“Tell me,” Jack whispers, eyes closed, nose pressed to his lover’s cheek, lips nearly touching. The Doctor kisses him tenderly, then pulls away.

“All that time I spent learning to break fixed points, how to take them apart, where to push to make time do what I wanted… You’re a Fact, Jack.” He smiles a strange, private smile. “My favourite Fact. A fixed point, incarnate. I could break you, I think. Jack, I could fix you.”

Jack opens his mouth but nothing comes out; then the Doctor is lowering him to the grass, arm under his shoulder, but he can’t do anything more than stare in blank shock. To be mortal - to _die_, once and for all - each thing he has thought his heart's desire has failed him, but this… he has never allowed himself to hope for this, not once after the Doctor told him it was impossible. Not once in a thousand years. Instead it has flowed underneath everything else, a vast regret bearing his life in its wake.

What a thing to offer, what a bribe -

And suddenly he understands. Scrambling backwards on hands and feet, Jack shakes his head desperately. "No, you can't - I won't! It will kill you!"

The Doctor stays where he is, legs outstretched on a peaceful hillside, watching patiently. "It will rewrite the universe; in a very real way it will kill everyone. In another way it will harm nothing at all, of course. Yes," he concedes, as Jack's head continues shaking denial, "I expect it will kill me." The calm facade cracks, just a bit, and the pain underneath leaks through into his eyes, the lines around them drawing tight. “I can’t bear to leave you like this, Captain, not when I might be able to help. I’m going to die anyway. You can’t will it away.”

Of course Jack would prefer not to be left, not to be alone and eaten by eternity; but, as is apparently _always_ true, it could be worse.

He could be immortal, _and_ be the man who killed the Doctor.

If the Doctor fails.

“Will it work,” Jack says; it slips out all at once on a breath.

“Of course it may not. But I think it will. That’s what I’ve been doing, Jack, looking for -” his hands are dancing, trying to illustrate what he can’t explain in words, “the right spot, the weak point, where I can - pull a thread, to change a pattern. It's not easy to see, when I'm… just myself."

"But you think you found it?" The Doctor nods. "What happens then, if it works?"

Leaning back on his elbows, the Doctor looks out at the sky. "I don't know. It's much too big a change to say." He must have been thinking about this most of the time Jack was - indisposed; there is a settled certainty about him that worries Jack. Thinking about it all alone. Jack moves back to his side, lays down to look out at the blue sky as well. "I'm quite certain I _shouldn't_ do it, Jack, by any measure of _things one ought not do with Time_, but I think I _can_, we can, and I think… I'm tired, Jack. I'm broken, I've ruined myself, I've ruined so much else - I never should have survived the Time War, I think. I've ruined you. Won't you let me try to set it right, before it's too late?"

"You've been spending your free time contemplating suicide." The Doctor laughs gently and something snaps inside of Jack. He is on his knees over the Doctor, shaking him by the lapels of his coat in helpless fury. "You can't just decide this! You can't die! Everything I've done, all these years and everything we've been through, you can't just -"

"Everything we've done to each other?" the Doctor suggests. All the fury drains away as quick as it came and Jack lowers him carefully to the ground. He's seen people in this mood before. The Doctor is well past _contemplating_.

"Everything," Jack says, throat tight.

"I think the universe can get by without us, Jack."

Jack touches his cheek, thumb to browline, brushes his hair back with faltering fingers; leans forward, forearms braced on the Doctor's chest, to frame his beloved face with both hands. "I love you," he protests hopelessly.

"I love you, too," the Doctor assures him, terrifyingly, arms coming around him to hold him close. "Nothing else will do."

Closing his eyes, Jack hangs his head. “I never could deny you anything.”

“No,” the Doctor whispers, “I suppose you never could. My Jack.”

Jack settles at his side, propped up on an elbow, takes his hand and intertwines their fingers. “You don’t need my cooperation for this one.”

“Technically, no. But this is - this is oblivion, Jack. You, what you are now, will never have existed. Perhaps there will still be a handsome boy on the Boeshane Peninsula, but he will never grow up to be _you_. Everything you’ve done. Everything you are. For that matter, I’ve no idea what it will do to my timeline, but… without you, the Doctor will never be _me_. But it doesn’t weigh much against eternity, Jack, unless you want it to.”

“If it doesn’t work -”

“Then you have my permission to hate me forever.” Jack pretends it’s a laugh but it’s really a sob, because it’s _not funny_. That undercurrent is sweeping him away, become a longing for oblivion, for annihilation, that fills him right to the edge of his skin. He can’t ignore it.

“I’m not ready.”

The Doctor pushes him over and settles his head on Jack’s shoulder. “That’s alright. Look, I got you a blue sky, and clouds, and wind, and later there will be stars. You have all the time in the universe.”

-+-+-

Time’s heartbeat under his ear never falters as they lie there together, alternately silent or remembering or idly discussing nothing at all. Time’s champion, he had been called once, and a lot of other things beside; now he’ll play Time’s arbiter, and free the still centre that had seemed so unnatural to him at first, so long ago. If Jack wants him to.

As the first stars are appearing, Jack breaks another silence to ask, “Here?”

“What?”

“Would you do it here? Is that why we came?”

“Oh - no. We’ll want both temporal and physical proximity, for best chance of success. Quickest.” Before his mind burns out. “I just wanted to come here again. It seemed… like a good place.”

“Pretty tame for a last day.” With a painfully unconvincing grin Jack says, “There’s a thing humans like to say. _Live like you were dying_. They seem to think it’s a good thing.”

The Doctor barks a startled laugh. “I’ve lived my whole life like I was dying, Jack, this whole life - and it’s driven me to extremes I never should have considered. So many wrong things. So much beauty as well, so much…” His stretches up to kiss his Captain wistfully. “So much love, Jack. But I don’t think it was right, always having my eye on the end. Always struggling against it. You did better, I think. You lived like you were _living_.”

“Maybe.” Jack looks away. “I’m not ready yet, Doctor, but I don’t want to wake up in the morning and ask myself, _maybe today?_ So maybe I am.” He shifts around until he achieves a better angle for kissing and proceeds to do so enthusiastically and thoroughly, for quite a long time; which isn’t to say the Doctor doesn’t participate. “You were right,” Jack says, finally, nuzzling into his neck warm and welcome. “Everything we need is here.”

When they step out of the TARDIS, they are on an undistinguished rooftop in London, which is probably not surprising. The Doctor doesn’t know the date or year, and doesn’t want to; he asked the TARDIS to take him where he needed to be, and she did. He pats her door fondly. “Thank you, old girl. I’m nothing without you.”

Jack walks to the edge of the roof, looks around, and walks back. “Here?”

“Here.”

He takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then sighs. “Gods of mercy, one last request.” Holding out his hands, he sinks to his knees, draws the Doctor down with him, kisses him; then the flame leaps high and bright and glorious. “Be quick, anwylyd. Strike true.” He smiles through the pain, and then he is gone.

Fire pouring through his veins, the Doctor closes his eyes, kisses Jack one last time, and remakes the world anew.

-+-fin-+-

  



End file.
